Christopher Soames, Baron Soames

Arthur Christopher John Soames, Baron Soames ( born October 12, 1920 in Penn; † September 16, 1987 in Odiham ) was a conservative British politician and son of Winston Churchill. He sat for the constituency of Bedford from 1950 to 1960 in the British House of Commons. After that, he was the last British Governor of Southern Rhodesia.

In the cabinet of Harold Macmillan, he served from 1958 to 1960 as Minister of War and from 1960 to 1968 as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under Macmillan's successor, Alec Douglas -Home. 1968 sent him Harold Wilson as a British ambassador to France.

In October 1972 Soames was appointed British member of the European Commission in Brussels by the conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, together with George Thomson. There he took over the external relations of the EC and was also one of its Vice- President. He held until 1977 this office.

In 1978 he was appointed as Baron Soames of Fletching in the County of East Sussex for life peer and thus got a seat and vote in the House of Lords. From 1979 to 1981 he was leader of the Conservatives in the House of Lords and in addition to his duties in Rhodesia government minister Margaret Thatcher.

Soames was the son of Captain Arthur Granville Soames, the offspring of a brewing family, which was to make landowners ( landed gentry ). His mother was Mary Hope Woodbine Parrish. His parents divorced early, and his mother married the 7th Baron Dynevor. Soames himself married on February 11, 1947 Mary Churchill, youngest daughter of Winston Churchill, with whom he had five children.

Soames is buried in the family grave Churchill at St. Martin Church, Bladon.