The Right Honourable The Viscount Astor |
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Member of the House of Lords | |
Assumed office 11 November 1999 as an excepted hereditary peer |
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In office 27 December 1972 – 11 November 1999 as a hereditary peer |
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Preceded by | William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor |
Personal details | |
Born | 27 December 1951 |
Spouse(s) |
Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones (m. 1976–present) |
Relations | See Astor family |
Children | Flora Katherina Astor William Waldorf Astor IV James Jacob Astor |
Parents |
William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton |
Alma mater | Eton College |
Occupation | politician, businessman |
William Waldorf Astor III, 4th Viscount Astor (born 27 December 1951) is a prominent English businessman and politician who sits as a Conservative hereditary Lord Temporal in the House of Lords. He is a member of the Astor family known for its prominence in business, society, and politics in both the United States and England in the 19th and 20th centuries.
William Waldorf III is the son of William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor (1907–1966) and Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton (1920–2013). From his father's later marriages, he has three younger half-sisters: Emily (born 1956), Janet (born 1961), and Pauline (born 1964). From his mother's remarriage to Thomas Michael Baring, he has a younger half-brother named Edward Richard Philip Baring (born September 1962). He was educated at Eton College.
Astor was a Lord-in-Waiting (a House of Lords whip) from 1990 to 1993. He was then made a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security. In 1994, he moved to the Department of National Heritage where he served until leaving the government in 1995.
He was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford.
Viscount Astor is Chairman of Silvergate Media and director of Networkers Plc (since 2007) and trustee of Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham.
Astor married Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones (born 1948), daughter of Timothy Angus Jones and Patricia David Pandora Clifford on 14 January 1976. They have three children: