Obituary: Sir Rhodes Boyson
11 MAY 1925 – 28 AUGUST 2012
THE former Conservative MP for Brent North, Sir Rhodes Boyson, has died at the age of 87 after a long illness. Boyson represented the north west London constituency from 1974 to 1997, finally losing the seat in Labour’s landslide general election victory of that year. He held several ministerial positions in Margaret Thatcher’s governments of the 1980s, and is mostly remembered for his time at the department of education. A former headmaster of Highbury Grove school, Boyson championed traditional values both in teaching and society at large; he endorsed corporal punishment, school uniform and an emphasis on grammar, and opposed sex education and some modern teaching methods. Originally from Lancashire, Boyce was a Labour supporter in his youth before switching to the Tories in the 1960s.