Anthony Royle, Baron Fanshawe of Richmond

Who was Anthony Royle, Baron Fanshawe of Richmond?

Anthony Henry Fanshawe Royle, Baron Fanshawe of Richmond KCMG was a British Conservative Party politician and businessman.

A son of Sir Lancelot Royle, he was educated at Harrow and RMA Sandhurst. He joined the Life Guards and subsequently the SAS. He contracted polio on his way to Malaya and was invalided back to UK and spent a year in an iron lung.

In the 1950s, Royle became President of the Western Area Young Conservatives. Living in London, he became an insurance broker and unsuccessfully contested St Pancras North in the 1955 general election. As the Conservative candidate in the Torrington by-election, 1958, he failed to hold the usually safe seat.

At the 1959 general election, Royle was finally elected to the House of Commons, as the Member of Parliament for Richmond, Surrey. He held the seat until he retired at the 1983 general election.

He was a junior minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 1970 to 1974. He was knighted - KCMG in 1974. He was invited to become Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher to reform the way the party recruited candidates. He was also responsible for the party's International office.