English aristocrat and art collector Desmond Parsons was BOTD in 1910. Born in London to an aristocratic family, he was the youngest son of the 5th Earl of Rosse. He studied at Eton College, where he had a passionate love affair with fellow student James Lees-Milne, who remained a lifelong friend. He then studied at Oxford University, joining the louche aristocratic social circle known as the Bright Young Things, socialising with Evelyn Waugh, Tom and Nancy Mitford, Robert Byron and Harold Acton. After graduation, he joined the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, though appears to have tired of military life. In 1934, he travelled to China to locate the long-lost Acton, whom he found lecturing at Peking National University in modern-day Beijing. Parsons settled in Beijing, sharing an apartment with fellow expatriate Byron, who was unrequitedly in love with him. An enthusiastic scholar of Chinese history and art, Parsons took the first recorded photographs of ancient cave paintings in the Buddhist cave shrine at Tun-Huang. He later attempted to remove a wall painting from the caves using hand tools, and was arrested by Chinese authorities, though released after intervention by the British government. In 1935, he developed Hodgkin’s Disease, becoming progressively more ill over the next two years. In 1937, he travelled back to Europe with the assistance of his brother, dying in Zurich, aged 26. Described as “one of the most magnetic men of his generation”, he featured prominently in Lees-Milnes’ journals, first published in 1975.