[1] His father, George Mayhew, was a decorated army officer turned oil executive; his mother, Sheila Roche, descended from members of the Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendancy, was a relative of James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, an Irish National Federation MP for Kerry East.

[3] Mayhew contested Dulwich in 1970,[3] but the incumbent Labour member, Sam Silkin, beat him by 895 votes.

[1] He was one of only five Ministers (Tony Newton, Kenneth Clarke, Malcolm Rifkind and Lynda Chalker are the others) to serve throughout the whole 18 years of the Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

[citation needed] This represents the longest uninterrupted Ministerial service in Britain since Lord Palmerston in the early 19th century.

[6] On 12 June 1997, he was given a life peerage as Baron Mayhew of Twysden, of Kilndown in the County of Kent.