Timothy Eric Boswell (C2 1956 – 1961), who became The Baron Boswell of Aynho, died on the 30 August 2025 at the age of 82. He was a Northamptonshire farmer who was a Conservative MP for Daventry from 1987 to 2010. He had a long and prestigious career in politics late into his life.
After attending Marlborough College, he studied Greats at New College, Oxford then obtained a diploma in agricultural economics. He went on to marry Helen Delahay Boswell, née Rees, the daughter of a clergyman and they were together for 50 years until her death in 2019. They had three daughters together.
Boswell was elected as the Conservative MP for Daventry in the 1987 general election and held the seat until his retirement from the House of Commons. He became a Member of the Agriculture Select committee in 1987 and the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1989. He entered John Major’s government in 1990 as an Assistant Government Whip, following the 1992 general election and was promoted within the Whip’s Office and became a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury.
In December 1992, Boswell was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education then at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until the Major government fell in 1997.
In opposition Boswell became a spokesman on Trade and Industry then on Education and Employment until 2001. He then became the spokesman for Work and Pensions.
On his retirement as an MP, Boswell was raised to the peerage for life as Baron Boswell of Aynho, of Aynho in the County of Northamptonshire on 8 July 2010. He resigned the Conservative whip after being made Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees in the House. He also became Chairman of the European Union Committee. He was also appointed a deputy lieutenant of Northamptonshire in 2010. His last attendance at the House of Lords saw the unusual occurrence of him speaking in the same debate as his daughter Baroness Prentis of Banbury who had just been raised to the peerage after losing her seat in the 2024 General Election. He retired from the Lords on 24 July 2025.
