Desmond Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook

Desmond Llowarch Edward Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook KCVO MBE JP DL (9 July 1905 – 5 December 1995)^[1] was an Anglo-Irish peer and soldier.

Flower was the only son of Llowarch Flower, 9th Viscount Ashbrook and his wife Gladys Lucille Beatrice, daughter of George Higginson.^[2] He was educated at Eton College and went then to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1927.^[3] Ashbrook worked as a chartered accountant, succeeding to his father's titles on 30 August 1936.^[3] Before the Second World War, he joined 79th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, of the Territorial Army, ending the war as a major.^[4][5] After the end of the war in 1945, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire.^[3]

In 1949 Flower was nominated a Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Cheshire and in 1961 vice lord-lieutenant.^[3] From 1946, he represented the county also as a Justice of the Peace, retiring from these posts in 1968.^[3] Flower joined the council of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1957.^[3] He was invested as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1977 on his retirement from the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster^[6] and was director of the Country's Gentlemen Association.^[3]