Desmond Llowarch Edward Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook (9 July 1905 – 5 December 1995) was an 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. He was educated at Eton College and went then to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1927. Ashbrook worked as a chartered accountant, succeeding to his father's titles on 30 August 1936. 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. After the end of the war in 1945, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Desmond Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook

In 1949 Flower was nominated a Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Cheshire and in 1961 vice lord-lieutenant. From 1946, he represented the county also as a Justice of the Peace, retiring from these posts in 1968. Flower joined the council of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1957. 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 and was director of the Country's Gentlemen Association.

Desmond Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook

Family

On 8 November 1934, he married Elizabeth (1911-2002), daughter of Captain John Egerton-Warburton; they had three children, two sons and a daughter. Flower died in 1995 and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his older son Michael.

Desmond Flower, 10th Viscount Ashbrook

In 2022, a new rose variety, the 'Elizabeth Ashbrook', was named in the late Lady Ashbrook's honour.

References

1905 births

1995 deaths

People from County Laois

Irish expatriates in England

English people of Irish descent

Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford

British Army personnel of World War II

Deputy Lieutenants of Cheshire

Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Members of the Order of the British Empire

People educated at Eton College

Royal Artillery officers

Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland

English justices of the peace