Relatives of the former
prime minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pr ...
,
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
feature in law, politics and finance, as well connections to the British aristocracy.
Immediate family
David Cameron is the younger son of stockbroker Ian Donald Cameron (12 October 1932 – 8 September 2010) and his wife Mary Fleur (born Mount,
1934
), a retired
justice of the peace
A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
and second daughter of
Sir William Mount.
Cameron's father, Ian, was born with both legs deformed and underwent repeated operations to correct them. Cameron's parents were married in 1962.
He was born in London, and brought up in
Peasemore
Peasemore is a village and civil parish in the English ceremonial and historic county of Berkshire in the West Berkshire unitary authority area, west of the A34 road and north of the town of Newbury.
Geography
Peasemore is a small community wit ...
, Berkshire.
His father was born at
Blairmore House
Blairmore School was an independent boarding preparatory school in Glass near Huntly, Aberdeenshire until its closure in 1993. The site is now owned and used by a Christian organisation called Ellel Ministries International as a prayer, training ...
near
Huntly
Huntly ( gd, Srath Bhalgaidh or ''Hunndaidh'') is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, formerly known as Milton of Strathbogie or simply Strathbogie. It had a population of 4,460 in 2004 and is the site of Huntly Castle. Its neighbouring settlemen ...
, Aberdeenshire, and died near
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...
in France on 8 September 2010.
According to the ''Feminist Times'', as a magistrate, Mary Cameron imposed prison sentences for anti-nuclear weapons protests at the
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a series of protest camps established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began on 5 September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on ...
.
He has an elder brother,
Alexander Cameron KC, and two sisters, Tania Rachel (born 1965) and Clare Louise (born 1971).
Ancestry
Alexander Geddes
Blairmore House
Blairmore School was an independent boarding preparatory school in Glass near Huntly, Aberdeenshire until its closure in 1993. The site is now owned and used by a Christian organisation called Ellel Ministries International as a prayer, training ...
, the birthplace of Ian Cameron,
was built by his great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes,
who had made a fortune in Chicago
trading in grain and returned to Scotland in the 1880s.
["Highlands for the high life"](_blank)
''Telegraph'', 26 March 2002; Retrieved 4 September 2007
Aristocratic connections
David Cameron has no aristocratic titles. However, he has several distant connections to the aristocracy.
Cameron descends from
King William IV
William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...
and his mistress
Dorothea Jordan
Dorothea Jordan, née Bland (21 November 17615 July 1816), was an Anglo-Irish actress, as well as a courtesan. She was the long-time mistress (lover), mistress of Duke of Clarence, Prince William, Duke of Clarence, later William IV, and the moth ...
through their illegitimate daughter
Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence to the fifth female generation Enid Agnes Maud Levita. His father's maternal grandmother, Stephanie Levita (''née'' Cooper), was the daughter of
Sir Alfred Cooper
Sir Alfred Cooper (28 January 1838 – 3 March 1908) was a fashionable English surgeon and clubman of the late 19th century whose patients included Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
Cooper was born in Bracondale, Norfolk, England, the son of ...
and Lady Agnes Duff (sister of
Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife
Alexander William George Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, (10 November 1849 – 29 January 1912) styled Viscount Macduff between 1857 and 1879 and known as the Earl Fife between 1879 and 1889, was a British peer who married Princess Louise, the third c ...
) and a sister of
Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 192 ...
, the Conservative statesman and author. His paternal grandmother, Enid Levita, who married secondly in 1961
the Hon. Robert Watson (younger son of the 1st Baron Manton), was the daughter of Arthur Levita and niece of
Sir Cecil Levita , chairman of
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
in 1928. Through Lord Manton's family, Cameron is also a kinsman of the
3rd Baron Hesketh , Conservative
Lords Chief Whip 1991–93. Cameron's maternal grandfather was
Sir William Mount Bt TD DL, a
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
officer
An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...
and the
High Sheriff of Berkshire
The High Sheriff of Berkshire, in common with other counties, was originally the King's representative on taxation upholding the law in Saxon times. The word Sheriff evolved from 'shire-reeve'.
The title of High Sheriff is therefore much older ...
, and Cameron's maternal great-grandfather was
Sir William Mount Bt CBE, Conservative MP for Newbury 1910–1922. Lady Ida Feilding, Cameron's great-great grandmother, was third daughter of
William Feilding, Earl of Denbigh and Desmond GCH PC, a
courtier
A courtier () is a person who attends the royal court of a monarch or other royalty. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the official r ...
and
Gentleman of the Bedchamber
Gentleman of the Bedchamber was a title in the royal household of the Kingdom of England from the 11th century, later used also in the Kingdom of Great Britain. A Lord of the Bedchamber was a courtier in the Royal Household; the term being fir ...
.
Through his descent from William IV, he was sixth cousin once removed to Queen
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
, and is seventh cousin to King
Charles III
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
.
Finance
David Cameron's forebears have a long history in finance. His father Ian was senior partner of the stockbrokers
Panmure Gordon & Co., in which firm partnerships had long been held by Cameron's ancestors, including his grandfather and great-grandfather,
and was a director of estate agent
John D. Wood. His great-great grandfather Emile Levita, a
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
financier who obtained British citizenship in 1871, was the director of the
Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (informally The Chartered Bank) was a bank incorporated in London in 1853 by Scotsman James Wilson, under a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria. which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.
Sir Ewen Cameron, another great-great-grandfather, was London chairman of the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank
HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tril ...
; he played a key role in arranging loans from the
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...
to
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
during the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
.
Great-grandfather, Ewen Allan Cameron, was partner of
Panmure Gordon
Panmure Gordon is a UK based investment bank. It provides a full range of services including investment banking, trading, research and sales with distribution to the UK, Europe and the US. Panmure Gordon has 150 UK listed corporate clients, over 40 ...
stockbrokers and served on the
Corporation of Foreign Bondholders,
and the Committee for Chinese Bondholders (set up by the then-
Governor of the Bank of England
The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...
,
Sir Montagu Norman (''later'' Lord Norman) in November 1935).
In 1982, Ian Cameron was involved in creating Panamanian
Blairmore Holdings Blairmore Holdings, Inc. was an offshore investment company established by Ian Cameron, father of former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. Following the Panama Papers leak, it was discovered that Blairmore Holdings was a customer of Mossack ...
, an
offshore investment
Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have ser ...
fund, valued around $20 million in 1988. This investment fund used controversial
bearer share
A bearer instrument is a document that entitles the holder of the document to rights of ownership or title to the underlying property, such as shares or bonds. Unlike normal registered instruments, no record is kept of who owns bearer instruments ...
s until 2006. Ian Cameron was named in the
Panama Papers
The Panama Papers ( es, Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 ...
, documents leaked in April 2016 from the Panama-based legal and business services company
Mossack Fonseca
Mossack Fonseca & Co. () was a Panamanian law firm and Corporate services, corporate service provider.[Sir William Dugdale
Sir William Dugdale (12 September 1605 – 10 February 1686) was an English antiquary and herald. As a scholar he was influential in the development of medieval history as an academic subject.
Life
Dugdale was born at Shustoke, near Coleshi ...](_blank)
, brother-in-law of Katherine, Lady Dugdale (died 2004, former
lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom sh ...
to the queen), who was chairman of
Aston Villa Football Club
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...
. Birmingham-born documentary filmmaker
Joshua Dugdale
Thomas Joshua Stratford Dugdale (born 20 September 1974) is a British farmer, estate owner and documentary film-maker.
Education and personal life
He attended Eton College, studied economics at the University of Manchester, and law at City, Uni ...
is his cousin. Cameron's other notable relations include
Adam Hart-Davis
Adam John Hart-Davis (born 4 July 1943) is an English scientist, author, photographer, historian and broadcaster. He presented the BBC television series '' Local Heroes'' and '' What the Romans Did for Us'', the latter spawning several spin-off ...
,
Duff Hart-Davis
Peter Duff Hart-Davis (born 3 June 1936), generally known as Duff Hart-Davis is a British biographer, naturalist and journalist, who writes for ''The Independent'' newspaper. He is married to Phyllida Barstow and has one son and one daughter, th ...
, and
Ferdinand Mount
Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet, FRSL (born 2 July 1939), is a British writer, novelist, and columnist for ''The Sunday Times'', as well as a political commentator.
Life
Ferdinand Mount, brought up by his parents in the isolate ...
(Sir Ferdinand Mount
Bt FRSL).
Notes
External notes
www.burkespeerage.com
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, David, Family Of
David Cameron
People named in the Panama Papers