Henry Benyon

Sir Henry Arthur Benyon, 1st Baronet JP ( Fellowes; 9 December 1884 – 15 June 1959) was the immediate post-War Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire.

Born Henry Arthur Fellowes in Chelsea, London, the son of James Herbert Fellowes and his wife, Edith Isobel ( Walrond; later Dame Edith Benyon, GBE), of Kingston Maurward House near Dorchester, Dorset. His father changed his surname to Benyon after inheriting Englefield House in Berkshire from his uncle, Richard Fellowes Benyon, in 1897. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Benyon lived at Ufton Court during his father's lifetime. He was a captain in the Berkshire Yeomanry during World War I, serving in Egypt. At home, he served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1925 and was the Lord Lieutenant from 28 March 1945 until his death in 1959. He was also a Berkshire County Councillor. He had inherited his father's estates – as well as the patronage of St Mark's Church, Englefield and St Peter's Church, De Beauvoir Town, Hackney – in 1935 and was created a baronet, of Englefield in the Royal County of Berkshire on 8 July 1958.

In 1915, he married Violet Eveline, daughter of Sir Cuthbert Edgar Peek. Sir Henry Benyon died on 15 June 1959, aged 74, but left no heirs-male and Englefield passed to his second cousin-once-removed, William Richard Shelley.

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 * Photograph by Elliott & Fry in NPG (1954).