Alan Tindal Lennox-Boyd, 1st Viscount Boyd of Merton, CH, PC, DL (18 November 1904 – 8 March 1983), was a British Conservative politician.
[2] In 1954, he became Secretary of State for the Colonies, where he oversaw early stages of decolonisation, with the granting of independence to Cyprus, Ghana, Malaya and Sudan.
In 1955, Lennox-Boyd threatened to resign from his post when some Tory cabinet members wanted to apply immigration controls to New Commonwealth countries.
Being opposed to the line taken in Harold Macmillan's Wind of Change speech, Lennox-Boyd subsequently became an early patron of the right-wing Conservative Monday Club.
Whilst this may appear to contrast with his earlier objection to racialised immigration controls, according to David Goodhart, this was explained by him being "a believer in the imperial idea rather than racial equality".
Lennox-Boyd's early hands-on visit to South Nyeri in the Kikuyu reserves, for instance, was accompanied by Baring and Erskine.
Governor Baring quietly suggested to the assistant police commissioner that it would be politically inexpedient to prosecute such a loyal ally.
From his earliest years in politics he had openly admired the fascist dictators; reluctantly accepted democracy in Britain; supported the British Empire as a natural expression of racial superiority in an unequal world.
In April 2011, a Guardian report[11] described a cache of government documents which might indicate that, despite clear briefings, Lennox-Boyd repeatedly denied that the abuses were happening, and publicly denounced those colonial officials who came forward to complain.
Lennox-Boyd and Lady Patricia had three children: Lord Boyd of Merton was knocked down and killed by a car when walking across the Fulham Road in London in March 1983, aged 78, and, after cremation, was buried at St Stephen's Church, Saltash, Cornwall.
[18] Historian and biographer Michael Bloch describes the former regent and Crown Prince of Iraq, 'Abd al-Ilah, as being homosexual and a "close friend" of Lennox-Boyd.
Bloch writes that after 'Abd al-Ilah was killed during the 14 July Revolution in 1958, "the revolutionaries discovered intimate letters from Lennox-Boyd among the Prince's papers, which they released to the world's press.