The Right Honourable

The Lady Cameron of Chipping Norton
Cameron in 2012
Born
Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield

(1971-04-18) 18 April 1971
London, England
Other names"SamCam"[1]
Education
Alma mater
OccupationBusinesswoman
Known forSpouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom (2010–2016)
Political partyConservative
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1996)​
Children4
Parents
RelativesEmily Sheffield (sister)

Samantha Gwendoline Cameron, Baroness Cameron of Chipping Norton (née Sheffield; born 18 April 1971),[2] is an English businesswoman. Until 2010, she was the creative director of Smythson of Bond Street. She is married to David Cameron, who has served as Foreign Secretary since 2023 and was formerly Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. She took on a part-time consultancy role at Smythson after he became prime minister.

Early life

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, and Annabel later remarried to William Waldorf Astor III, nephew of her own stepfather Michael Langhorne Astor, with whom she had three more children.[4] Her father also had three more children by his second wife Victoria Penelope Walker.

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 (8.0 km) north of Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, though not in the Hall itself, the family having moved out in 1963, some eight years before her birth.

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.

Cameron's family also own a large Yorkshire estate called Sutton Park.[8]

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 went on to study Fine Art at the School of Creative Arts, part of the University of the West of England.[9][10]

Family

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

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)[11] 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.[12] Florence Cameron's third given name, Endellion, is taken from the Cornish village of St Endellion; she was born early at the Royal Cornwall Hospital while the Camerons were on holiday in Cornwall.[13][14]

Work and politics

Cameron served as a creative director at the British accessories brand Smythson of Bond Street, from 1997 until May 2010, winning a British Glamour Magazine Award for Best Accessory Designer in 2009.[15] She took on a part-time creative consultancy role at Smythson after her husband became Prime Minister.

From 2011 to 2015 Cameron was on the judging panel for the Vogue Fashion Fund alongside Victoria Beckham, Alexandra Shulman, and Lisa Armstrong. She served as an ambassador for the British Fashion Council playing a prominent role in London Fashion Week.[16]

In 2013, Cameron was named in Tatler's Top 10 Best Dressed List. In 2015, Cameron was named In Vanity Fair's International Best-Dressed List.[17]

In 2017 Cameron founded Cefinn, a contemporary womenswear brand based in London[18] that launched its first collection in February of that year. The name Cefinn (pronounced 'Seffin') is an acronym of her four children's names, Ivan, Nancy, Elwen, and Florence, between the first and last letters of Cameron.[19]

Charitable causes

Cameron is active for several charitable causes, and in June 2013 she became a patron for Revitalise.[20] Cameron has volunteered for Dress for Success, a nonprofit organisation that gives free clothes and advice about job interviews to unemployed women.[21] In October 2012, she held a benefit for them at Number 10.[21]

On 11 December 2015, it was announced Cameron, 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.[22]

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."[23][24]

Other issues

Cameron is credited with coining the phrase "There is such a thing as society; it's just not the same thing as the state". This has been said several times by David Cameron, including in his victory speech following his victory in the Conservative leadership election in 2005.[25] It is seen as a rejoinder to Margaret Thatcher's famous comment, frequently misquoted as "there is no such thing as society".[26]

Samantha and David Cameron are members of the Chipping Norton set.[27]

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. ↑ "Emily Sheffield, sister-in-law of former PM David Cameron, named Evening Standard editor". inews.co.uk. 12 June 2020. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  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. ↑ "Lady in waiting: Samantha Cameron". The Independent. 10 October 2009. Archived from the original on 29 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ "Cameron is father for third time". BBC News. 16 February 2006. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  12. ↑ "Cameron's eldest son Ivan dies". BBC News. 25 February 2009. Archived from the original on 26 February 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  13. ↑ "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.
  14. ↑ "Camerons reveal daughter's name". BBC News. 25 August 2010. Archived from the original on 25 August 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2010.
  15. ↑ Duck, Charlotte (2 June 2009). "Glamour Award Winners 2009". Glamour UK. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  16. ↑ "From Politics to Fashion". Prestige Magazine. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  17. ↑ Fair, Vanity (5 August 2015). "The 2015 International Best-Dressed List". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  18. ↑ "Samantha Cameron launches Cefinn fashion range". BBC News. 30 November 2016.
  19. ↑ "Reverse nepotism: is David Cameron's reputation affecting Samantha's dress sales?". The Guardian. 6 November 2019.
  20. ↑ "Samantha Cameron joins in game of boccia with Paralympic athletes". The Daily Telegraph. July 2013. Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  21. 1 2 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
  22. ↑ Conlan, Tara (11 December 2015). "Samantha Cameron and Ed Balls to mix it up in Great British Bake Off special". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  23. ↑ "David Cameron: Taking more and more refugees not answer". BBC News. 2 September 2015. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017.
  24. ↑ "Samantha Cameron shocked by Syrian children's stories in Lebanon". Save the Children UK. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016.
  25. ↑ "In full: Cameron victory speech". BBC News. 6 December 2005. Archived from the original on 14 June 2006. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ 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.
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