Engineer, legislator and charity trustee Robert Alexander Holt Methuen, the 7th Baron Methuen, died last week after a short illness.

The last of Corsham’s Methuen family to sit as a hereditary peer in the House of Lords, he enjoyed a long and distinguished career in industry and in politics.

He was born in Corsham in 1931, the youngest of four children, never expecting to inherit his family’s title.

He grew up with his elder brothers and sister at Ivy House in Corsham, before studying at West Downs Prep School in Winchester and then Shrewsbury College.

After completing his national service in the Royal Signals, during which time he was posted to Germany, he studied electrical engineering at Trinity College Cambridge, obtaining his degree in 1957.

He returned to Wiltshire and started working at Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company in Chippenham, where he developed a lifelong interest in railway systems.

In 1958 he married Jane Hooper of the Brakspear family of Corsham, in Bishop’s Stortford, where her father was rector.

They had two daughters, Charlotte and Kitty, and three grandchildren.

He moved to Derby in the 1960s, where he worked for IBM developing engine test beds at Rolls- Royce, and then as a systems engineer.

In 1994 he retired and married his second wife Magrit Hadwiger, but following the death of his brother Anthony John took up his seat in the House of Lords, where he served on the science and technology committee.

Following the reforms to the Lords in 1999 he was elected to remain by his fellow peers, and continued to work until his death.

He served on the rail advisory group which took him all over the world, visiting refugee camps in Syria, and more recently Petra in Jordan, which he visited last year.

Until last year he was also chairman of the Lady Margaret Hungerford Trust, which maintains Corsham’s historic almshouses.

His funeral will take place at St Mary’s Church in Mappleton, Derbyshire, at 11.30am on Monday, July 28.

Donations in his memory can be made to the Ark Rescue and Rehoming Centre in Ashbourne, the Severn Valley Railways and The Lady Margaret Hungerford Charity, via H Lee and Son funeral directors, Ashbourne, on 01335 342530.