Mervyn Horatio Herbert, 17th Baron Darcy de Knayth, styled Viscount Clive was a British peer and Royal Air Force officer
Background
Mervyn Horatio Herbert from birth, he was the second son of George Charles Herbert, 4th Earl of Powis and his wife Violet, suo jure 16th Baroness Darcy de Knayth. His elder brother Percy, twelve years his senior, died of wounds received in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, at which point Mervyn became heir to his father"s title Earl of Powis and took the courtesy title Viscount Clive.
Education
Mervyn was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as Bachelor of Arts
Career
Styled the Honorary In 1929, at the death of his mother, he inherited the title of Baron Darcy de Knayth, making him a peer in his own right (while retaining the higher title of Viscount Clive by courtesy). He then studied law at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar as barrister in 1929. He was also Justice of the Peace for the county of Shropshire, where he owned Styche Hall near Market Drayton, birthplace home of his direct ancestor Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive.
Mervyn would follow in his brother"s footsteps by fighting for Britain, gaining the rank of Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
A recreational aviator, he enlisted at the outbreak of World World War II in 1939 as an Aircraftsman, was promoted Flight Sergeant and later commissioned. At time of his death he was serving with Number.
157 Squadron Royal Air Force, a Mosquito night fighter squadron then based at Royal Air Force Bradwell Bay, Essex. He died in 1943, aged thirty-eight, while flying on active service, and was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church, Welshpool.
His barony passed to his four-year-old daughter Davina.
His father was left without male heirs so on his death his earldom passed to a distant cousin.