LORD Montagu, founder of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, died after a short illness on Monday, August 31, aged 88.

Edward, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, inherited the estate when he was just two years old, on the death of his motoring pioneer father John Montagu.

He was born on October 20, 1926, boarded at St Peter's Court school in Kent, and was evacuated to Canada during the Second World War, where his accent picked up a transatlantic twang.

On his return he attended Eton and then - following a posting with the Grenadier Guards in Palestine - New College Oxford, where he studied modern history but left in his second year.

He was soon signed up by the PR company Voice and Vision, with which he helped to launch the classic children's comic Eagle, and in 1951, at age 25, he took over the management of his struggling estate.

Before he could get to grips with restoring its fortunes however, the peer was accused of sexually assaulting a boy scout at a beach hut on the Solent.

The charges were dropped shortly after his arrest in 1953, however he was then re-arrested on separate charges of taking part in homosexual activities with two airmen, alongside his cousin Michael Pitt-Rivers and Daily Mail journalist Peter Wildeblood.

Lord Montagu, who was engaged to be married at the time, denied the charges but was found guilty and jailed for nearly a year.

The so-called Montagu Trial provoked great public discussion due to the increasing disquiet about the criminalisation of homosexual acts.

The case was referenced prominently in the Wolfenden Report of 1957, which recommended that homosexuality be decriminalised and led, a decade later, to a change in legislation.

In later years Lord Montagu kept quiet about his private life, but declared himself bisexual in an autobiography, Wheels Within Wheels, published in 2000.

On his release from prison he recognised that his income was insufficient to cover the running costs of the Beaulieu estate, so he took the then unusual move of opening the house up to the paying public.

The Motor Museum he founded eventually grew to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country, and the estate also played host to numerous other national and community events, including a series of jazz festivals featuring such prominent stars of the day as George Melly and Humphrey Lyttleton.

A hereditary peer in the House of Lords, he was active in promoting heritage and conservation issues in parliament, and in 1984 he was appointed as the first chairman of English Heritage, a post he held for a decade.

Aside from motoring and conservation, his passions included foreign travel, wind surfing and the theatre, and he retained a love of parties and social events from his youth into old age.

He first married Belinda Crossley in 1959, with whom he had two children, Ralph and Mary. Their marriage ended in 1974, after which he wed Fiona Herbert and had a second son, Jonathan.

Lord Montagu’s favourite car, a 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, will be used to transport his coffin to his funeral at Beaulieu Abbey Church on September 10.