Hon Sir Mark Alexander Lennox-Boyd 1943-2025

The Hon Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd, who died 24 July, 2025, aged 82, was a former Conservative MP and a scion of the Viscounts Boyd of Merton.

He was born at the Dorchester, London, 4 May, 1943, the third son of the then Alan Tindal Lennox-Boyd CH, PC, DL (1904-1983), Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, 1931-60, by his wife the heiress Lady Patricia Florence Susan Guinness (1918-2001), daughter of the 2nd Earl of Iveagh, KG (1874-1967).

Alan Lennox-Boyd was a member of Sir Winston Churchill's peacetime government as Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation from 1952 to 1954, and raised to the peerage in 1960, as Viscount Boyd of Merton.

Mark Lennox-Boyd served as the Conservative MP for Morecambe and Lonsdale from 1979 to 1983, and the (slightly renamed) Morecambe and Lunesdale from 1983 until his defeat at the general election in May, 1997. 

He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford from which he graduated with a BA in 1964 and an MA in 1965. He was called to the bar by Middle Temple in 1968.

Lennox-Boyd contested Brent South in October 1974, being defeated by Labour's Laurie Pavitt. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Energy from 1981 to 1983, PPS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1984, Assistant government whip from 1984 to 1986; a Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury (Government whip) from 1986 to 1988, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher from 1988 to 1990, and as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1990 to 1994. He was dubbed a knight in 1994.

Lennox-Boyd was a member of the Court of the Fishmongers' company, Prime Warden 1998–99, and served as chairman of the company's Education and Grants committee 2010–15. He was a trustee of the Georgian Group, and was chairman between 2014 and 2015. He was a Patron of Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports the welfare of Britons imprisoned overseas and their families, and Patron of the British Sundial Society.

He married 29 June, 1974,  Italian-born Arabella Parisi, daughter of Piero Parisi, by whom he had one daughter, Patricia Irene Lennox-Boyd (born 13 Aug, 1980).

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