Barrowclough undertook a range of commercial work and specialised in aeronautical law, an area in which he lectured at Oxford.

When two high street menswear retailers, United Drapery Stores and Montague Burton, sought to merge in 1969, the Commission rejected the proposal.

Barrowclough's term as Ombudsman also witnessed the expansion of the Office's jurisdiction to encompass 50 non-departmental public bodies (quangos).

A woman who sought an independent professional review in 1985 of the circumstances surrounding the death of her four-day-old daughter complained of delays in arranging and conducting the investigation.

[4] Barrowclough also reported on a case where a former hospital patient discovered full-frontal naked photographs of himself in a medical textbook which had been written by the professor who had treated him.

[5] Another case received tabloid attention when a patient in a women's ward complained that she had suffered distress when nurses had failed to prevent a drunken man from having sexual intercourse with his wife in a nearby hospital bed.

Barrowclough continued that 'my officer asked the complainant to describe what had happened then; she said that she could hear 'everything' and she instanced the bed creaking, but she could not see anything'.

Barrowclough's greatest achievement as Ombudsman came in his investigation into the actions of the Department of Trade and Industry in licensing the Barlow Clowes group of companies.

The company was established as a 'bond-washing' operation, in which gilt-edged Government bonds were purchased and sold in order to create tax advantages.

The press reported that the Department, as the licensing authority, had ignored warnings about Barlow Clowes from both the company's competitors and from reputable sources in the City.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Lord Young sought to defuse the matter in June 1988 by appointing Sir Godfray Le Quesne QC to hold an independent inquiry to determine the facts of what happened within the Department.

Backbench MPs from all sides of the House voiced their anger and dismay at the attitude of the Government and the narrowness of the Le Quesne report's terms of reference.

It identified irregularities in the affairs of Barlow Clowes which dated back to the 1970s and held that the Department had committed five acts of maladministration.

It was concluded that if departmental officials had examined the affairs of the business properly in 1985 on the basis of the warnings the Department had received, it was a 'virtual certainty' that they would have closed Barlow Clowes down.

Nicholas Ridley, who had replaced Young as Secretary of State, rejected the main thrust of Barrowclough's findings and claimed that departmental officials had acted correctly on external advice.

The thoroughness in which he had investigated, a practice for which Barrowclough had hitherto been criticised, had helped secure justice for the victims of Barlow Clowes and the biggest compensation payment ever procured by the Office.

At the conclusion of his term as Ombudsman, Barrowclough served as a council member and tribunal chairman of the Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association (FIMBRA).