William Henry Smith, 5th Viscount Hambleden (born 18 November 1955) is a British
peer, and descendant of the founders of the stationery group
WH Smith
WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...
.
Marriage and family
Smith is the son of
William Smith and Countess Maria Carmela Attolico di Adelfia. Through his
paternal grandmother
Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic gra ...
, he is a descendant of the
Earls of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke is a title in the Peerage of England that was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title, which is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, has been recreated ten times from its origin ...
and the
Vorontsov family. He succeeded to the title of
Viscount Hambleden
Viscount Hambleden, of Hambleden in the County of Buckingham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1891 (as Viscountess Hambleden) for Emily Danvers Smith, in honour of her deceased husband, the businessman and C ...
in 2012 upon the death of his father.
[Lundy, Darryl.]
"Hon. William Henry Smith"
The Peerage, p. 2712, accessed 10 October 2012
Smith married American Sara Suzanne Anlauf in 1983 and had two daughters, Sara Marie Celeste (b. 1986) and Alexandra Patricia (b. 1989). He was a film producer and restaurateur. He separated from his wife in 2003 and returned to
Hambleden
Hambleden is a small village and civil parish in south-west Buckinghamshire, England. The village is around west of Marlow, and around north-east of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
The civil parish also includes the villages of Fingest and ...
, Buckinghamshire, England.
[
He is in a relationship with singer ]Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Princess Anni-Frid Synni Reuss, Countess of Plauen (born Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad on 15 November 1945), also known by her nickname "Frida", is a Norwegian-born Swedish singer, songwriter and environmentalist, who is best known as one of the foun ...
of ABBA
ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's ...
, who is a German princess and countess by marriage to Heinrich Reuss, who died in 1999. Smith lives with Lyngstad in Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
.[Eden, Richard]
"Abba singer’s lover becomes a viscount"
''The Telegraph'', 12 August 2012
References
1955 births
Living people
Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
{{UK-viscount-stub