Michael Hicks Beach, Viscount Quenington

Hicks-Beach was the eldest son of former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Michael Hicks-Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn, and his wife Lady Lucy Catherine Fortescue. He sat as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Tewkesbury from 1906 to 1916 and was a board member at Lloyds Bank.

Hicks-Beach fought in the First World War as a captain with the 1/1st Royal Gloucestershire Hussars and died, aged 39, on 23 April 1916 as a result of wounds received at Katia, Egypt. He is buried at the Cairo New British Protestant Cemetery alongside his wife.^[1] Viscount Quenington is commemorated on Panel 8 of the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall, one of 22 MPs that died during World War I to be named on that memorial.^[2][3] Viscount Quenington is one of 19 MPs who fell in the war who are commemorated by heraldic shields in the Commons Chamber.^[4] A further act of commemoration came with the unveiling in 1932 of a manuscript-style illuminated book of remembrance for the House of Commons, which includes a short biographical account of the life and death of Viscount Quenington.^[5][6]

From 1915, when his father was created 1st Earl St Aldwyn, Hicks-Beach held the courtesy title of Viscount Quenington.

Hicks-Beach married Marjorie Brocklehurst, daughter of Henry Dent Brocklehurst of Sudeley Castle, on 28 September 1909. They had two children:^[7]

• Lady Delia Mary Hicks-Beach (born 2 August 1910, died 29 November 2006), married Brigadier Sir Michael Dillwyn-Venables-Llewelyn, MVO, 3rd Bt.^[8]
• Michael John Hicks-Beach, 2nd Earl St Aldwyn (born 9 October 1912, died 29 January 1992).

Lady Quenington died in Egypt^[9] on 4 March 1916, less than two months before her husband. Their son Michael succeeded his grandfather in the earldom only a week after his father's death. He also became a prominent politician.