Lord Carring ton left £36m to his family
TORY grandee Lord Carrington, who resigned as Foreign Secretary to take responsibility for the invasion of the Falklands, left £36,798,038 in his will.
The hereditary peer, who died aged 99 last July, was the last surviving member of Winston Churchill’s government of the 1950s.
Probate records reveal that Lord Carrington, whose family name was Peter Carington, left the bulk of his estate including his home and farm in Bledlow, Buckinghamshire, to his son Rupert. His two daughters Alexandra and Virginia were left his interest in two properties in Chelsea and his collection of watercolours. The Etoneducated peer left his farm in West Rasen, Lincolnshire, to his grandson Robert. His wife Iona died aged 89 in 2009 after 67 years of marriage.
Lord Carrington served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, reaching the rank of major and winning the Military Cross.
A junior Minister in the departments of Agriculture and Defence under Churchill, he spent three years as High Commissioner to Australia in the 1950s before becoming First Lord of the Admiralty under Harold Macmillan.
Lord Carrington was Defence Secretary under Edward Heath from 1970 until 1974.
He became Foreign Secretary in 1979 under Margaret Thatcher but resigned in 1982 when Argentinian forces landed on the British territory in the South Atlantic, believing the failure of the Foreign Office to foresee the invasion required him to leave the Government. Lord Carrington then served as Secretary General of Nato from 1984 to 1988.
David Cameron led tributes to the peer after his death, describing him as ‘a lovely man and a great public servant’.