[3] In 1924, his father changed the family name to Chichester-Clark by deed poll, thus preventing the old ascendancy name Chichester (his wife's maiden name) from dying out.

On his mother's side the family are descended from the Donegall Chichesters and were the heirs of the Dawsons of Castledawson, who had originally held Moyola Park.

His brother, Major James Chichester-Clark, was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1971, but resigned in the face of increasing violence and internal Ulster Unionist Party splits.

[3] Chichester-Clark was consistently either a Front Bench Spokesman for the Opposition or a member of the Government of Harold Macmillan and, later, Edward Heath.

When Edward Heath suspended the Stormont Government and Parliament in 1972, he asked Chichester-Clark to go with William Whitelaw to Northern Ireland as Minister of State.

[3] From 1974 he worked as a director of companies in the construction industry, as a political adviser to the NFBTE, as a management consultant and as chairman of the medical research charity RAFT (www.raft.ac.uk) and The Arvon Foundation.