Robin Leigh-Pemberton, Baron Kingsdown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lord Kingsdown in the robes of a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter

Robert "Robin" Leigh-Pemberton, Baron Kingsdown, KG, PC (born 5 January 1927) is a cross-bencher on the House of Lords, and was formerly a lawyer and banker.

Leigh-Pemberton was educated at St Peter's Court, then at Eton College. He attended Trinity College, Oxford, where he earned an MA in 1950. In 1954, he was called to the Bar, and he practised law for a few years. He eventually became Chairman of the National Westminster Bank, then Governor of the Bank of England until 1993. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1987, and created a life peer in 1993, as Baron Kingsdown, of Pemberton in the County of Lancashire. He became a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1994, and was also the Lord-Lieutenant of Kent. Between 1979 and 1992, he served as Honorary Colonel of the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry.

His Barony of Kingsdown is a life peerage, but a previous hereditary Barony of Kingsdown was created for a kinsman, Thomas Pemberton Leigh, in 1858.This title became extinct on the 1st Baron's death in 1867. His family has a long association with Kingsdown and Torry Hill, near Doddington, Kent, where he rebuilt the family mansion in the 1960s. It features a striking view north towards the Isle of Sheppey, the Swale and the Thames estuary. In the grounds, there is also what is believed to be the only Fives Court attached to a private dwelling; it was built in 1925. Lord Kingsdown's father also built a private miniature railway in the 1930s. This still runs for several miles on his estate.