His father, a physician and politician, was created a viscount in 1945.
He was educated at Hele's School, Exeter, and Balliol College, Oxford.
He served as an intelligence officer in the Second World War between 1941 and 1945 as a Flying Officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
He succeeded in the viscountcy on the death of his brother, who died with no male heir in 1976.
[1] Lord Addison married Kathleen Wand, daughter of the Right Reverend Sir William Wand, on 22 August 1936, with whom he had the following children:[1] He died in 1992 and was succeeded by his only son.