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Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh

The Right Honourable
The Lord Hesketh
KBE PC
Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms
In office
22 May 1991 – 16 September 1993
Prime Minister John Major
Preceded by Lord Denham
Succeeded by Viscount Ullswater
Member of the House of Lords
as Baron Hesketh
In office
28 October 1971 – 11 November 1999
Preceded by Frederick Fermor-Hesketh
Succeeded by House of Lords Act 1999
Personal details
Born Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh
(1950-10-28) 28 October 1950 (age 66)
Political party UKIP
Other political
affiliations
Conservative (until 2011)
Spouse(s) Hon Claire Watson
Religion Roman Catholic

Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh, KBE, PC (born 28 October 1950), is a British UK Independence Party politician. He first came to notice as the owner of Hesketh Racing, a car racing team which competed at various levels between 1972 and 1978. After the team folded, he tried to set up a British motorcycle business, Hesketh Motorcycles, which failed. He has been involved not very successfully in other business ventures. In 2006, he sold the family seat, Easton Neston, at Towcester, Northamptonshire—the only surviving complete house by the English baroque architect Nicholas Hawksmoor—together with the estate, the furnishings of the house and family portraits.

Hesketh succeeded in the barony (and baronetcy) on 6 October 1955, aged four, when his father, Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh, died aged 39.

He was educated at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire. He went on to work for Dean Witter Inc in San Francisco before returning to manage his family's businesses.

Hesketh married Hon. Claire Georgina Watson, daughter of Joseph Rupert Eric Robert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton and Mary Elizabeth Hallinan, on 21 May 1977 and has three children:

Lord Hesketh's children use the surname Hesketh day-to-day.

Hesketh automatically became a member of the House of Lords but took no active part in politics until he met Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after the Irish Republican Army's bomb attack on her in Brighton on 12 October 1984. Thatcher visited Easton Neston and in conversation, Hesketh explained that he did not occupy his seat in the House of Lords. He later explained, "Mrs Thatcher asked me if I served on a regular basis in the House, and when I told her no, she said, 'You must. It's your duty, and I expect you to be there.'" From that point Hesketh worked under Thatcher, whom he described as "the most outstanding person I ever worked with" and held the office of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment between 1989 and 1990 and was Minister of State in the Department of Trade and Industry between 1990 and 1991.


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