Robert Boscawen

Robert Thomas Boscawen (17 March 1923 – 28 December 2013) was a British Conservative politician. He was the last member of the House of Commons to hold a Military Cross for action during the Second World War.

Background and education Robert Boscawen was the fourth son of Evelyn Hugh John Boscawen, eighth Viscount Falmouth, of Tregothnan, by his wife Mary (née Meynell, descended from the Earls of Halifax) A member of a very old Cornish family, his ancestors included Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, and Admiral Edward Boscawen, victor over the French at the Battle of Lagos. The battalion formed part of the 5th Guards Armoured Brigade, part of Major General Allan Adair's Guards Armoured Division, and Boscawen was sent to the cavalry wing of Sandhurst to train as a tank commander. In September 1944, after having fought in the Battle of Normandy, his battalion were among the first tanks to enter Brussels. A week after Operation Market Garden had finished, he was awarded the Military Cross (MC) during the German counter offensive against the Nijmegen bridgehead.

In April 1945, during the last month of the war, he was very seriously wounded and sustained disfiguring burns when a shell pierced his tank. He was evacuated to Archibald McIndoe's pioneering "Guinea Pig Club" plastic surgery unit at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, spending much of the next three years in hospital. They lived at Ivythorm Manor in Street, Somerset. His wife predeceased him by seven months, dying in May 2013.

Boscawen was a rower and yachtsman. He stroked the Trinity boat and rowed in the university trial eights. He was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron and regularly sailed in international races, including the Fastnet.