Christopher Soames

Churchill and Soames grave at St Martin's Church, Bladon

Arthur Christopher John Soames, Baron Soames GCMG GCVO CH CBE PC (12 October 1920 – 16 September 1987) was a British politician belonging to the Conservative Party and the son-in-law of Winston Churchill. A European Commissioner and the last Governor of Southern 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.

Early life

Soames was born in Penn, Buckinghamshire, England, the son of Captain Arthur Granville Soames (the brother of Olave Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide, both descendants of a brewing family which had joined the landed gentry) by his marriage to Hope Mary Woodbine Parish. His parents divorced while he was a boy, and his mother married as her second husband the 8th Baron Dynevor (a descendant of the 1st and last Earl Talbot), by whom she had further children including Richard Rhys, 9th Baron Dynevor.

Education

Soames was educated at West Downs School, Eton College, and RMC Sandhurst.^[1]

Political career

After military service in the Second World War, Soames served as the Assistant Military Attaché in Paris. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Bedford from 1950 to 1966 and served under Sir Anthony Eden as Under-Secretary of State for Air from 1955 to 1957 and under Harold Macmillan as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty from 1957 to 1958. In the 1955 Birthday Honours he was invested as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).^[2]

He served in the Cabinet under Macmillan as Secretary of State for War from 1958 to 1960 and under Macmillan and his successor Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1960 to 1964. In 1958 he was admitted to the Privy Council.

Between 1965 and 1966 Soames was Shadow Foreign Secretary under Edward Heath. He lost his seat in Parliament in the 1966 General Election. In 1968 Harold Wilson appointed him Ambassador to France, where he served until 1972. In 1972 Soames was subsequently made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO),^[3] a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG),^[4] and a Grand Officer of the French Legion d'Honneur.^[5] He was then a Vice-President of the European Commission from 1973 to 1976. He was created a life peer on 19 April 1978 as Baron Soames, of Fletching in the County of East Sussex,^[6] and served as the interim Governor of Southern Rhodesia from 1979 to 1980. As part of the Lancaster House Agreement, Soames administered Southern Rhodesia after it renounced its Unilateral Declaration of Independence and shepherded it to internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe. From 1979 to 1981 he was Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords under Margaret Thatcher concurrent with his duties in Rhodesia. In 1980 he was invested as a Companion of Honour. ^[7]

Family

Lord Soames married Mary Churchill, the youngest child of Winston Churchill and Clementine Hozier, on 11 February 1947. They had five children:

• The Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur Nicholas Winston Soames (b. 12 February 1948) – Conservative Member of Parliament and former Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
• The Hon. Emma Mary Soames (b. 6 September 1949) – editor of Saga magazine
• The Hon. Jeremy Bernard Soames (b. 25 May 1952)
• The Hon. Charlotte Clementine Soames, the Countess Peel (b. 17 July 1954), is married to The Earl Peel, the Lord Chamberlain
• The Hon. Rupert Christopher Soames (b. 18 May 1959).^[8]

Death

Lord Soames died from pancreatitis, aged 66. His ashes were buried within the Churchill plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

References

Further reading

• Stevan Pavlowitch, Apologising for the Empire, Oxford University Press, England (1996)
• Claire Sanderson, Perfide Albion ? L’affaire Soames et les arcanes de la diplomatie britannique, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2011.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Christopher Soames
• Time:Festive Birth of a Nation (Zimbabwe)
• Maximilian Genealogy Master Database 2000
• Nicholas Soames – MP for Mid Sussex

Thatcher I Cabinet (1979 – 1981) Thatcher Whitelaw Howe Biffen Soames Hailsham Gilmour Carrington Walker St John-Stevas Pym Carlisle Prior Howell Heseltine Jenkin Joseph Atkins Maude Younger Nott Edwards Jopling Havers Changes: Brittan Fowler

European Commissioners from the United Kingdom Soames Thomson Jenkins Tugendhat Richard Clinton-Davis Cockfield Brittan Millan Kinnock Patten Mandelson Ashton Hill

European Commissioners for External Relations Rey Martino Deniau Soames Haferkamp De Clercq Andriessen van den Broek Brittan Patten Ferrero-Waldner Merged into High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

European Commissioners for Trade Rey Deniau Dahrendorf Soames Haferkamp De Clercq Andriessen Brittan Lamy Hübner Mandelson Ashton Ferrero-Waldner De Gucht