Samantha Cameron

Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (née Sheffield; born 18 April 1971)[2] is a British businesswoman. Until 13 May 2010, she was the Creative Director of Smythson of Bond Street.

Samantha Cameron
Cameron in 2012
Spouse of the Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom
In role
11 May 2010 – 13 July 2016
Preceded bySarah Brown
Succeeded byPhilip May
Personal details
Born
Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield

(1971-04-18) 18 April 1971
Paddington, London, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
David Cameron (m. 1996)
Children4
ParentsSir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet
Annabel Jones
RelativesEmily Sheffield (sister)
Alma materCamberwell College of Arts
University of the West of England, Bristol
OccupationBusinesswoman
Nickname(s)SamCam[1]

She became the spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom when her husband, David Cameron, was elected into 10 Downing Street from 2010 to 2016. She took on a part-time consultancy role at Smythson after he became Prime Minister.

Early life

Samantha Cameron is the elder daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet[3] and Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones. Sir Reginald and Annabel married on 11 November 1969. The couple divorced in 1974, after Samantha's younger sister, Emily Sheffield, was born in 1973.[4]

Annabel later remarried to William Waldorf Astor III, nephew of her own stepfather Michael Langhorne Astor. They reside at Ginge Manor in Oxfordshire.

Samantha Sheffield's birth was registered in Paddington, London.[5] She grew up on the 300-acre (120-hectare) estate of Normanby Hall,[6] five miles (8 km) north of Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, though not in the Hall itself, the family having moved out in 1963, some eight years prior to her birth.

Ancestors

Samantha Cameron is a great-granddaughter of Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Berkeley Sheffield and, through him, is a distant cousin of model and actress Cara Delevingne. The father of Samantha's maternal grandmother, Patricia Clifford, was Sir Bede Clifford, a descendant of King Charles II. Her great-grandparents also include the writer Enid Bagnold and her husband Sir Roderick Jones, head of Reuters.[7]

Through her great-great-great-grandfather Sir Robert Sheffield, 4th Baronet, she is a fourth cousin of Pamela Harriman, first wife of Winston Churchill's son Randolph Churchill. This Sheffield ancestor was an MP for the same constituency as Thomas Corbett (Lincolnshire MP), also an ancestor.

Samantha Cameron's family also own a large Yorkshire estate called Sutton Park. In March 2015, unpublished photographs from the City of Leeds archives revealed that the panelling and mantelpiece in the study of Sutton Park had been imported from the Morning Room of Potternewton Hall, near Leeds, which was the ancestral estate of Olive Middleton.[8] Olive was the great-grandmother of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. The room's "priceless interior" had been designed by royal architect Henry Flitcroft in the 1720s.[9][10][11]

Education

Cameron initially went to St Helen and St Katharine, though she sat A-levels at Marlborough College. She did an Art Foundation course at Camberwell College of Arts and then went on to study Fine Art at the School of Creative Arts, part of the University of the West of England.[12][13]

Family
Sutton Park – the Sheffield family seat

She and David Cameron married on 1 June 1996 at the Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury, East Hendred, Oxfordshire, five years before he was first elected as MP for Witney at the 2001 general election.[14]

The couple have had four children: Ivan Reginald Ian Cameron (8 April 2002, Hammersmith and Fulham, London – 25 February 2009, Paddington, London), Nancy Gwen Beatrice Cameron (born 19 January 2004, Westminster, London), Arthur Elwen Cameron (born 14 February 2006, Westminster)[15] and Florence Rose Endellion Cameron (born 24 August 2010, Cornwall). Ivan was born with a rare combination of cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy and died at the age of six at St Mary's Hospital, London.[16] Florence Cameron's third given name, Endellion, is taken from the Cornish village of St Endellion. The couple's fourth child was born early while the Camerons were on holiday in Cornwall.[17][18]

Work and politics

Cameron's work for Smythson of Bond Street won her a British Glamour Magazine Award for Best Accessory Designer in 2009.[19] In 2010, she was named in Tatler's Top 10 Best Dressed List.

Two days after her husband became Prime Minister, she announced she was stepping down from her full-time role to take on a consultancy role within Smythson for two days a week. She said that choice was hers alone and had been made after she discovered she was pregnant again and after what she described as an "understandably difficult year", attributed to the death of her first child, Ivan.[20]

Cameron serves as ambassador for the British Fashion Council and plays a prominent role in London Fashion Week.[21]

Charitable causes

Cameron is active for a number of charitable causes, and in June 2013 she became a patron for Vitalise.[22] Cameron has volunteered for Dress for Success, a non-profit organisation which gives free clothes and advice about job interviews to women who are unemployed.[23] In October 2012, she held a benefit for them at Number 10.[23]

On 11 December 2015, it was announced that Cameron would be one of sixteen celebrities to participate in the Great Sport Relief Bake Off, which aired in 2016 as part of that year's Sport Relief fundraiser.[24]

Cameron is an ambassador for the charity Save the Children. In March 2013, after visiting Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Cameron said: "As a mother, it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories from the children I met today, no child should ever experience what they have. With every day that passes, more children and parents are being killed, more innocent childhoods are being smashed to pieces."[25][26]

Other issues

During March 2010, the Mail on Sunday reported that Cameron may have voted for Tony Blair's Labour Party, and that she might vote for Gordon Brown in the 2010 general election, following comments made by Shadow Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey to Andrew Rawnsley during the making of a documentary for Channel 4. However, a Conservative spokesman issued a statement to blogger Iain Dale, stating that "The Mail on Sunday story is not true. Sam has never voted Labour and never will. She took five weeks off work to campaign for the Tories in Stafford in the 1997 general election" (where her husband was the Conservative candidate).[27] Samantha Cameron then issued her own statement: "I did not vote for Tony Blair in 1997 and I have never voted Labour".[28] In September 2017, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Samantha Cameron revealed that she had sometimes voted for the Green Party.[29]

Cameron is credited with coining the phrase "There is such a thing as society, it's just not the same thing as the state" (seen as a rejoinder to Margaret Thatcher's famous comment that there is "no such thing" as society),[28] which has been said several times by David Cameron, including in his victory speech following his victory in the Conservative Party leadership election in 2005.[30]

The Camerons are members of the Chipping Norton set.[31]

References
  1. "General election 2015 sketch: SamCam and George Osborne get down to business". Telegraph. 2 April 2015. Archived from the original on 22 June 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  2. McDougall, Linda (26 September 2008). "Tory party conference: Is Samantha Cameron ready for the spotlight?". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 22 April 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  3. When David Cameron was 'the new whizz kid of politics' Archived 24 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine BBC News – Newsnight, 6 October 2005
  4. "Person Page 4195". Thepeerage.com. 2 December 2008. Archived from the original on 30 June 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  5. England & Wales, Birth Index, 1916–2005 Record for Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield. Retrieved 20 April 2013
  6. Gammell, Caroline (12 May 2010). "Samantha Cameron is youngest 'First Lady' for half a century". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 15 May 2010. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  7. Melonie Clarke, Helena Gumley-Mason, ”Samantha Cameron's Sari Diplomacy” in The Lady, 26 November 2013, archived here
  8. "Roedean's Royal Connection - Olive Middleton (Lupton 1896-1900)". Roedean School. Retrieved 24 January 2019. (page 12) Olive Middleton (Lupton, Roedean School 1896-1900) - Born in 1881, Olive, with her three brothers and sister grew up in opulent surroundings at the family's ancestral seat of Potternewton Hall Estate, near Leeds...
  9. Laycock, Mike. "Duchess of Cambridge's links with stately home near York revealed". The Press (York) – 17 March 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015. Pine panelling from the morning room had then been installed in a room at Sutton Park at Sutton-on-the-Forest, owned by Sir Reginald Sheffield, father of the Prime Minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron. He said the panelling and mantelpiece were saved because they were part of a priceless interior dating from the 1720s, designed by royal architect Henry Flitcroft.
  10. A photographic Archive of Leeds, Leodis. "Potternewton Hall, Potternewton Lane". UK Gov. City of Leeds. Archived from the original on 30 June 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  11. Poole, David. "Potternewton Hall, Leeds". Heritage Gazette – 18 March 2015. Archived from the original on 21 May 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  12. "Lady in waiting: Samantha Cameron". The Independent. 10 October 2009. Archived from the original on 29 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  13. Victoria Lambert (29 March 2014). "Why everyone wants a Marlborough missus". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 February 2015. Retrieved 9 February 2015. Most famous, of course, is the Duchess of Cambridge, "wife of" our future king. But see also, Samantha Cameron, "wife of" the Prime Minister. Frances Osborne, "wife of" the Chancellor. Sally Bercow, "wife of" the Speaker. Diana Fox, "wife of" the Governor of the Bank of England.
  14. Lundy, Darryl. "The Peerage p 17890". The Peerage. Archived from the original on 5 May 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  15. "Cameron is father for third time". BBC News. 16 February 2006. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  16. "Cameron's eldest son Ivan dies". BBC News. 25 February 2009. Archived from the original on 26 February 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  17. "Samantha Cameron gives birth to baby girl". The Daily Telegraph. London. 24 August 2010. Archived from the original on 25 August 2010. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  18. "Camerons reveal daughter's name". BBC News. 25 August 2010. Archived from the original on 25 August 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2010.
  19. Glamour Award Winners 2009 Archived 9 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine Glamour
  20. "Samantha Cameron to step down from full time job". BBC News. 13 May 2010. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  21. "From Politics to Fashion – Prestige Magazine". Prestige Magazine. 14 February 2017. Archived from the original on 18 February 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  22. "Samantha Cameron joins in game of boccia with Paralympic athletes". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  23. Emma Barnett, Dress for Success: the charity quietly getting British women back into work Archived 8 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2012
  24. Conlan, Tara (11 December 2015). "Samantha Cameron and Ed Balls to mix it up in Great British Bake Off special". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  25. "David Cameron: Taking more and more refugees not answer". BBC News. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017.
  26. "Samantha Cameron shocked by Syrian children's stories in Lebanon". Save the Children UK. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016.
  27. "Iain Dale's Diary: SamCam Does NOT Vote Labour!". Iain Dale's Diary. 6 March 2010. Archived from the original on 8 March 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  28. Sparrow, Andrew (7 March 2010). "Tories red-faced after 'Samantha for Labour' gaffe". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 31 October 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  29. Armstrong, Lisa (9 September 2017). "'I didn't always vote Conservative – sometimes I went Green': Samantha Cameron". The Sunday Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 10 September 2017. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
  30. "In full: Cameron victory speech". BBC News. 6 December 2005. Archived from the original on 14 June 2006. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  31. Caroline Dewar (5 March 2012). "Who's who in the Chipping Norton set". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
Unofficial roles
Preceded by
Sarah Brown		 Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
2010–2016		 Succeeded by
Philip May
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