Alexander 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 28 October 1950 |
| Political party | UKIP |
| Other political affiliations |
Conservative (until 2011) |
| Spouse(s) | Hon Claire Watson |
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.
...
Wikipedia