Thomas Boyd-Carpenter

Boyd-Carpenter is the son of John Archibald Boyd-Carpenter, Baron Boyd-Carpenter and Margaret Mary Hall.[1] Boyd-Carpenter was educated at Stowe School, an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.

Stowe School

In 1957, Boyd-Carpenter was commissioned into the Scots Guards.[2][1] He was invested as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1973.[1] He became commanding officer of 1st Battalion Scots Guards in 1979, Commander of 24th Infantry Brigade in 1983 and director, Defence Policy at the Ministry of Defence in 1985.[2][1] He went on to Chief of Staff at Headquarters British Army of the Rhine in 1988, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Programmes) in 1989 and Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Programmes and Personnel) in 1992 before retiring in 1996.[2][1]

In retirement, he became chairman of the Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Heath Authority and then chairman of the Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.[2] He also became President of the Berkshire Royal British Legion.[3]

Boyd-Carpenter inherited the arms of his great grandfather Baron Boyd-Carpenter. Those Arms appear to be of French or Norman heritage, "Paly of six, argent and gules, on a chevron azure, 3 cross crosslets or." Crest, on a wreath a globe in a frame all or. Supporters, two horses, party-perfess, embattled argent and gules. Motto: "Per Acuta Belli" (Through the Asperities of War). These arms descend from John Carpenter, the younger (c. 1372 – 1442) who was the noted Town Clerk of London during the reigns of King Henry V & King Henry VI.[4]

These arms are often referred to as the Hereford Arms, named for the later ancestral home of the Carpenter family in Hereford, England. The crest, supporters & motto apparently has changed several times over the centuries.[5]

Sample of a medieval knight with an early Carpenter coat of arms on shield

Sir William Boyd Carpenter (1841–1918), an English clergyman of the Established church of England, Bishop of Ripon, afterwards a Canon of Westminster and Chaplain to the reigning sovereign of England, wrote in a letter dated 7 August 1907 that his family bore the Hereford Arms. Sir Noel Paton, upon painting the Family Arms, informed him that the supporters were originally a round-handled sword, which in drawing over time became shortened, until nothing but the cross and globe were left beneath it. Those Hereford Arms were used by "John Carpenter, town clerk of London, who died 1442 A. D."[5] His grandson John Boyd-Carpenter, Baron Boyd-Carpenter (1908–1998), continued the Arms into the new century by passing it down to his son, Thomas Boyd-Carpenter, the subject of this article, who was himself knighted after a military career as a Lieutenant-General and for public service.[5]

There is no direct male to male Carpenter descent connecting Lord Carpenter & the Boyd Carpenter line. The family connection is by marriage through the females in the family.[6]

The Hereford Coat of Arms described above should not be confused with the Arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter (c1450s?–1503) presented in the "Visitations of the County of Oxford taken in 1566, 1574, and 1634, published in 1871, which describe the arms displayed in the buildings at the University in Oxford – "In the Lyberarye of Baliall College." – as recorded by the officials performing the visitations in those years. The Visitations describe the arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter (c1450s–1503) as: "Paly of nine Gu. and Az. on a chevron Arg. surmounted by a mitre Or, three cross crosslets of—nine pales alternating red and blue, with a silver chevron bearing three gold cross-crosslets.[7]