"William Shelley" redirects here. For the 12th-century Scholastic philosopher, see William of Conches. For the 20th-century Canadian businessman & politician, see William Shelly.
Benyon was the eldest of four sons of Vice-Admiral Richard Shelley (1892–1968) and his wife, Eve Alice Gascoyne-Cecil, daughter of the Right Reverend Lord (Rupert Ernest) William Gascoyne-Cecil, Bishop of Exeter. William's father, Richard (son of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Shelley, 9th Bt., by Marion Emma Benyon, daughter of Richard Fellowes Benyon),[2] changed his (and William's)[3] surname from Shelley to Benyon in 1964 (by deed poll) after inheriting the Englefield estate from his second cousin, Sir Henry Benyon, 1st Bt., in 1959. The change of surname was confirmed in 1967 by Royal Licence.[4]
Benyon never held government office, but was PPS to Paul Channon 1972–74 when he was Minister for Housing, then was an Opposition whip from 1974 to 1976. He served as a member of the University of Reading Council from 1967 to 2002, was a member of Berkshire County Council from 1964 to 1974, a Deputy Lieutenant from 1970, a Berkshire JP 1962–77, Vice Lord Lieutenant for Berkshire from 1994 (the year he was knighted), and High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1995. He was chairman of the Peabody Trust, 1992–1998, and of the Ernest Cook Trust from 1992. He was a member of Boodle's, Pratt's and Beefsteak London clubs.[5] He lived at Englefield House until the last few years of his life and was a director of the Englefield Charitable Trust. He died on 2 May 2014, at age 84.
In May 1993, Benyon was awarded an honorary degree by the Open University as Doctor of the University.[6]
Family
Benyon married Elizabeth Hallifax in 1957. They had two sons, three daughters and 18 grandchildren, who all survived him. His elder son, Richard Benyon, was the ConservativeMP for Newbury from 2005 to 2019. His daughter, Mary, wife of Tom Riall, was appointed High Sheriff of Berkshire in April 2020.
Ancestors
Sir William's ancestors in three generations
Sir William Benyon, Kt (1994), DL (1970)
Vice-Admiral Richard Shelley, CB, CBE (recte Benyon, 1964) (1892–1968) High Sheriff Bucks, 1958. (Succeeded his second cousin of Sir Henry Benyon, 1st & last Bt.)
Charlotte Martha Hippisley (d.1893) Daughter of the Rev. Henry Hippisley, of Lamborne Place and Sparsholt, Berks, by Anne daughter of Lock Rollinson of Chadlington.[8][9]
Elizabeth Mary Clutterbuck (1833–?) Granddaughter of Robert Clutterbuck (1772–1831), JP, DL, FSA, of Watford. Her sister married William George Mount, MP
^a family of London mercers and aldermen. His [Sir William's] younger sister, Elizabeth Shelley, was abbess of St Mary's, Winchester, between 1527 and 1539. The Shelleys were rumoured to be the abbot of Waltham's bondmen of a manor near Ware, Hertfordshire, and in 1467 Sir William's grandfather John Shelley, soon to be sheriff of London, broke the head of a fellow mercer who had called him a churl. Although later generations would claim a more elevated pedigree, the origins of the Shelleys should be sought among the Hertfordshire peasantry (Christopher Whittick, in ODNB, 2013).
