Michael Knatchbull, 5th Baron Brabourne

Michael Herbert Rudolf Knatchbull, 5th Baron Brabourne, GCSI, GCIE, MC (8 May 1895 – 23 February 1939) was a British peer and soldier, the son of the 4th Baron Brabourne.

Baptised Michael Herbert Rudolf Knatchbull-Hugessen, he dropped the Hugessen part of his surname by deed poll in 1919. Knatchbull was educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He served in the Royal Artillery, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and in the RAF, rising to Captain. He fought in the First World War (where he was mentioned in dispatches three times) and was awarded the Military Cross. On 22 January 1919, he married Lady Doreen Browne, daughter of the 6th Marquess of Sligo and they had two children:


 * Norton Cecil Michael Knatchbull, 6th Baron Brabourne  (1922–1943)
 * John Ulick Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne (1924–2005). In 1946 he married The Hon. Patricia Mountbatten (later 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma) and had issue.



Knatchbull was elected Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashford in 1931 and served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for India, from 1932 to 1933. In 1933, upon his father's death, he succeeded as Baron Brabourne following which he was made Governor of Bombay and was invested as a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire. While Governor of Bombay he laid the foundation stone at the historic Brabourne Stadium cricket ground in 1936 after conducting negotiations for the land with Anthony de Mello of the Cricket Club of India (CCI). In 1937 he also became a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India and served as Governor of Bengal until 1939, the year he died.

His widow, The Dowager Lady Brabourne, was murdered in the 1979 bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma's boat. One of their grandsons also died in the bombing.