Patrick Mayhew

Through his father, Mayhew was descended from the Victorian social commentator Henry Mayhew. Mayhew's mother was a Roche and a relative of Lord Fermoy. He was educated at Tonbridge School, an all boys public school in Tonbridge, Kent.

He then served as an officer in the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, studied law at Balliol College, Oxford, and was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and of the Oxford Union. He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1955.

Mayhew contested Dulwich in 1970, but the incumbent Labour member, Sam Silkin, beat him by 895 votes. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tunbridge Wells constituency from its creation at the February 1974 general election, standing down at the 1997 election.

He was Under Secretary of Employment from 1979 to 1981, then Minister of State at the Home Office from 1981 to 1983. After this, he served as Solicitor General for England and Wales from 1983 to 1987, and then Attorney General for England and Wales and simultaneously Attorney General for Northern Ireland from 1987 to 1992. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1992 to 1997, the longest anyone has served in this office.

Mayhew was knighted in 1983. On 12 June 1997, he was given a life peerage as Baron Mayhew of Twysden, of Kilndown in the County of Kent. He retired from the House of Lords on 1 June 2015.

In 1963, he married Jean Gurney, and they had four sons. Mayhew's son, The Hon. Henry Mayhew, appeared in the fourth episode of the series The Secret History Of Our Streets, discussing life in the Portland Road, Notting Hill, London.

Mayhew suffered from cancer and Parkinson's disease in his later years. He died on 25 June 2016, aged 86, in his home in Kent.