Christopher Soames, Baron Soames
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Arthur Christopher John, Baron Soames GCMG GCVO CBE PC (October 12, 1920 – September 16, 1987) was a British Conservative politician and the son-in-law of Winston Churchill. A European Commissioner and the last Governor of Rhodesia, he had previously been the longtime Member of Parliament for Bedford from 1950 to 1966. He held several government posts and attained Cabinet rank.
Soames was the son of Captain Arthur Granville Soames, descendant of a brewing family which became part of the landed gentry, by his wife Hope Mary Woodbine Parrish. His parents divorced early on, and his mother remarried the 7th Baron Dynevor (descendant of the 1st and last Earl Talbot) as her second husband, by whom she had issue including Charles Arthur Uryan Rhys, 8th Baron Dynevor.
Christopher Soames married Mary Churchill (the youngest child of Winston Churchill) on February 11, 1947 after military service in World War II. They had five children, of whom the best known is his eldest son Nicholas Soames MP, the former Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
Before entering politics, he served as the Assistant Military Attaché in Paris. He served as the Conservative M.P. for Bedford (1950-1966). Soames served in the Cabinet of Harold Macmillan as Secretary of State for War from 1958 to 1960 and Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1960 to 1964 under Macmillan and his successor Alec Douglas-Home.
In 1968 Harold Wilson named Soames the British Ambassador to France, where he served until 1972. He was Vice-President of the European Commission from 1973 to 1976. He was created a life peer, becoming Baron Soames in 1978, and served as the last Governor of Rhodesia (1979 to 1980). From 1979 to 1981 he was Conservative Leader of the House of Lords and thus a minister in Margaret Thatcher's government concurrent with his duties in Rhodesia.
He is buried within the Churchill plot at St Martin Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
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External links
- [Time:Festive Birth of a Nation (Zimbabwe)]
- [Maximilian Genealogy Master Database 2000]
- [Nicholas Soames - MP for Mid Sussex]
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