DUNNE, Sir Thomas KG - obit in the Times
Richard R
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Obit in the Times of 21 Jan 2025
Sir Thomas Dunne obituary: wry and unstuffy lord-lieutenant
Dunne was the monarch’s representative in Herefordshire and Worcestershire as well as an influential chairman of the Association of Lord-Lieutenants
That Sir Thomas Dunne liked to take a good punch at pomposity was fitting, for as lord-lieutenant for Hereford and Worcestershire for three decades — a remarkably long tenure — his life was flecked with royal yarns that lost no twinkle in the retelling.
On a trip to Sandringham one summer, he was taken rough shooting by a keeper when they spied Queen Elizabeth II in a hedgerow some distance away. After a shot, the keeper drily said: “You’ve shot the Queen! She’s going down!” Dunne would later recount the story with a wry grin — and in front of the Queen — at the reception to mark her Golden Jubilee.
As lord-lieutenant, Dunne was the monarch’s representative in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and organised royal visits into the counties: three for the late Queen and more for her son, Charles, as Prince of Wales…
… Dunne often stayed at Windsor, Balmoral and Sandringham but on occasion a royal would invite themselves to stay. Princess Margaret, he recalled, was a particularly demanding guest in her not infrequent calls. In the 1980s he was awaiting her arrival in uniform in a muddy field — she was to attend an agricultural show in Herefordshire — when, clad in a slinky black cocktail dress, the princess emerged from the helicopter and whispered to Dunne: “The court is unexpectedly in mourning.”
… All lord-lieutenants had been peers and all peers were members of the House of Lords. Dunne was the first to be neither and he set about broadening their social background, a mission started under the prime minister John Major…
… Thomas Raymond Dunne was born in 1933 in Kineton, a village in Warwickshire. His upbringing was privileged but his parents were, like him, modest and unpretentious... He was the middle child of three and the eldest boy of Philip Dunne, who was awarded the Military Cross in the Second World War [he] was briefly an MP in the 1930s and close friends with Evelyn Waugh, who described him, as many would his son, as “chivalrous with a sense of private honour uncommon nowadays”.
Dunne’s mother, Margaret (née Walker), known as Peggy, was the mischievous and opinionated heiress of the Johnny Walker whisky dynasty... His younger brother, Martin, became lord-lieutenant of Warwickshire and their sister Philippa married the 2nd Earl Jellicoe…
… He married Henrietta Crawley when he was 24 and, after a brief stint with the army in Cyprus, inherited Gatley Park in Hertfordshire. The estate, which had been in the family since 1678, was romantic but run down and the couple made it their life’s mission to restore it. Henrietta survives him along with three children: Philip, former Conservative MP for Ludlow; Milly, a charity trustee; and Nicky, who runs the bookseller Heywood Hill. Another daughter, Letty, predeceased him last year…
… He was appointed Knight of the Garter, England’s highest order of chivalry, in 2008, in the same installation service as Prince William, the 1,000th knight to be appointed. Dunne was the 1,001st…
Sir Thomas Dunne KG KCVO, Lord-Lieutenant for Hereford and Worcestershire, was born on October 24, 1933. He died on January 6, 2025, aged 91
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/sir-thomas-dunne-obituary-wry-and-unstuffy-lord-lieutenant-nqjtxm802