Michał Jan Henryk Giedroyc (25 January 1929 – 29 December 2017) was a Polish-Lithuanian aristocrat who later became a naturalised British citizen and aircraft designer. Giedroyc was born on 25 January 1929 in Łobzów, Poland (today Labzova in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

).Michał Jan Henryk ks. Giedrojć
in: M.J. Minakowski: Minakowski's Great Genealogy His father Tadeusz was a politician, since 1938 Polish senator. His mother was Anna Dunin-Szostakowska. In 1940, he and most of the family were deported to a Siberian

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

after the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

. They escaped to Iran in 1942 and travelled to Britain in 1947. He studied at the University of London and then worked designing aircraft at Vickers Aerospace. He later moved into economic consultancy. He became an expert in the history of

medieval Lithuania In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

. His memoirs were published in 2010 as ''Crater's Edge''. He died on 29 December, 2017 age 88 from pulmonary embolism. His daughters include comedian and television presenter

Mel Giedroyc Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc ( , ; born 5 June 1968) is an English actress, comedian and television presenter. With Sue Perkins, she has co-hosted series including ''Light Lunch'' for Channel 4, '' The Great British Bake Off'' for the BBC an ...

and director

Coky Giedroyc Mary Rose Helen "Coky" Giedroyc (; born 6 February 1963) is an English director known for her work on '' Women Talking Dirty'', '' The Virgin Queen'', '' The Nativity'', and ''Penny Dreadful''. Early life Giedroyc was born in Kowloon on 6 Febru ...

References

1929 births 2017 deaths Deaths from pulmonary embolism Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom Lithuanian emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century Polish nobility 20th-century Lithuanian nobility 21st-century Lithuanian nobility Aircraft designers Historians of Lithuania 21st-century British memoirists Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom

Michal Michal (; ; ) was, according to the first Book of Samuel, a princess of the United Kingdom of Israel; the younger daughter of King Saul, she was the first wife of David (), who later became king, first of Judah, then of all Israel, maki ...

Polish Gulag detainees Vickers people 21st-century Polish historians Lithuanian Gulag detainees {{Lithuania-noble-stub

See also

References