Captain Denys Gravenor Rhodes

Denys Gravenor Rhodes (9 July 1919 – 30 October 1981)

Born in Ireland (though his father was from New Zealand), Rhodes served in the Second World War with the Rifle Brigade, fighting in North Africa and Italy.

He was an English writer who is most famous for his novel The Syndicate which was adapted into a 1968 film. He was married twice, once to actress Rachel Gurney (1946-1950) and secondly to The Honorable Margaret Elphinstone (1925- ), a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

After his second marriage he lived and wrote in rural Devon, until inoperable lung cancer led to a move nearer London. They were offered The Garden House in Windsor Great Park by the Queen, where his wife has continued to live since his death and wrote her 2011 memoir The Final Curtsey.

They had four children: their eldest daughter Annabel served as a bridesmaid to Princess Margaret in 1960.

Rhodes was born in Ireland, the son of (Arthur) Tahu Gravenor Rhodes, MVO (d. 1947), a solicitor and Captain in the Grenadier Guards, by his wife Hon. Helen Cecil Olive, eldest daughter of the 5th Lord Plunket, Governor of New Zealand from 1904 to 1910. His paternal grandfather was the New Zealand politician Arthur Edgar Gravenor Rhodes OBE and his great uncle was the politician and pastoralist William Barnard Rhodes.

Rhodes served in the Second World War with the Rifle Brigade, fighting in North Africa and Italy. After his second marriage he lived and wrote at Uplowman House at Uplowman in Devon, until inoperable lung cancer led to a move nearer London. They were offered The Garden House in Windsor Great Park by the Queen, where his wife continued to live until her own death in 2016, and where she wrote her 2011 memoir The Final Curtsey.

They had four children: two sons, Simon and Michael, and two daughters, Annabel and Victoria; their elder daughter Annabel served as a bridesmaid to Princess Margaret in 1960.