17 Facts About Edward Tomkins

Edward Tomkins owned Winslow Hall in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, often attributed to Christopher Wren, from 1959.

Edward Tomkins was educated at Ampleforth College and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Edward Tomkins was imprisoned in Camp 41, a prisoner-of-war camp near Parma in northern Italy, alongside Pat Gibson and Nigel Strutt.

Strutt was repatriated on medical grounds, and Gibson and Edward Tomkins were moved to another camp.

Edward Tomkins was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for his services.

Edward Tomkins returned to the Diplomatic Service in 1944, and was posted to Moscow until 1946.

Edward Tomkins returned to Whitehall in 1948, to become Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary, serving under Ernest Bevin and then Herbert Morrison.

Edward Tomkins was First Secretary in Washington, DC in 1951, then in Paris from 1955, in charge of press relations.

Edward Tomkins was appointed CVO in 1957, and CMG in 1960.

Edward Tomkins established friendly personal and working relationships with two French presidents, Georges Pompidou and Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

Edward Tomkins retired on leaving Paris in 1975, advanced to GCMG.

Edward Tomkins became a Grand Officier of the Legion d'honneur in 1984.

Edward Tomkins lived at the Christopher Wren-designed Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire.

Edward Tomkins bought the derelict and about-to-be-demolished house in 1959, and he and his wife carefully restored it.

Edward Tomkins was elected as a Conservative member of Buckinghamshire County Council from 1977 to 1985, and became a governor of Stowe School.

In 1955 Edward Tomkins married Gillian Benson, a daughter of Air-Commodore Constantine Benson by his wife Lady Morvyth Benson, a daughter of William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley.

Sir Edward Tomkins died at the age of 91 in 2007, and was survived by his three children.