[2] Bence-Jones was born in London, in 1930,[3] but most of his childhood was spent in India, and plans for his education in England were curtailed by the outbreak of World War II.
They bought a decaying country house called Glenville Park, located near Cork City.
This was an ambitious work, trying to record the architecture of all the Irish country houses, including those that were, by then, lost or ruined.
The first of these is believed to be the first book to give serious academic consideration to the subject of British architecture in India,[2] He was the consultant editor for Burke's Irish Family Records, 1973–76.
[2] In later years, ill health prevented him from finishing a biography of his friend, the novelist Elizabeth Bowen.