Samantha Cameron

Samantha Cameron
Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Sarah Brown
Spouse of the Leader of the Opposition
In office 6 December 2005 – 11 May 2010
Preceded by	Sandra Howard
Succeeded by	Jack Dromey
Personal details
Born	Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield 18 April 1971 (1971-04-18) North Lincolnshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	David Cameron (m. 1996–present)
Children	Ivan Reginald Ian (deceased) Nancy Gwen Beatrice Arthur Elwen Florence Rose Endellion
Residence	10 Downing Street
Alma mater	Bristol Polytechnic

Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (née Sheffield; born 18 April 1971), often known simply as "Sam Cam", is a British business executive and wife of David Cameron, the current Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Until 13 May 2010 she was the creative director of Smythson of Bond Street, a stationery firm. She took on a part time consultancy role within the firm after David Cameron became Prime Minister.

Early life

Normanby Hall

Samantha is the elder daughter of Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield, 8th Baronet (a landowner and a thrice descendant of King Charles II of England, which makes her a distant cousin of the late Diana, Princess of Wales) and his first wife Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones. Sir Reginald and Annabel married on 11 November 1969; Samantha was born in 1971, Emily in 1973; the couple divorced in 1974.

Samantha grew up on the 300-acre (121-hectare) estate of Normanby Hall, five miles (8 km) north of Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire. Her family also owns a large Yorkshire estate called Sutton Park.

Education

Samantha Cameron was educated at the School of St Helen and St Katharine, an independent school for girls in the market town of Abingdon in Oxfordshire and then took her A levels at Marlborough College, a co-educational independent school in Wiltshire. 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.

Sutton Park

Family

Samantha Sheffield and David Cameron married on 1 June 1996 at the Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury, East Hendred, Oxfordshire, five years before Cameron became an MP.

The couple have had four children: Ivan Reginald Ian (8 April 2002 Hammersmith and Fulham, London – 25 February 2009, Paddington, London); Nancy Gwen Beatrice (born 19 January 2004, Westminster, London), Arthur Elwen (born 14 February 2006, Westminster) and Florence Rose Endellion (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. 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.

Work and politics

Her work as the head of Smythson of Bond Street has recently won her a British Glamour Magazine Award for Best Accessory Designer. She has been noted as turning the company around and establishing it as a fashionable and popular brand. She also worked as a spokesperson for Shiatzy Chen. 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's 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." The decision was also in part attributed to the death of her first child, Ivan, the previous year.

During March 2010, the Daily Mail reported that Samantha 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 97 election". Samantha Cameron then issued her own statement: "I did not vote for Tony Blair in 1997 and I have never voted Labour".

Cameron caused controversy in May 2010 when it was reported that she had refused to use the regular Prime Ministerial chauffeur and instead insisted on having a woman driver. The main reason given for the change was that she felt more comfortable if the children were taken to school by a woman rather than a man.

She is credited with coining the phrase "There is such a thing as society, it's just not the same thing as the state", 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. This is a reference to Margaret Thatcher's often misquoted phrase "There is no such thing as society".

Ancestry

Cameron's maternal great-grandparents were Sir Roderick Jones (a Chairman of Reuters) and the novelist Enid Bagnold. Her maternal grandmother, Pandora Clifford, was the second wife of The Hon. Michael Astor. Her stepfather is William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor. On her maternal grandmother's side she is a great-great-granddaughter of John Murton Gundry, president of the Cleveland Trust Company.

Through her Barons Clifford of Chudleigh ancestors, who are descendants of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, she is also a descendant of the Barons Arundell of Wardour and of Margaret Howard, sister of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England. She is also a four-times descendant of King Charles II of England and related to the Spencer family this way too, for the Spencers are linked to King Charles II as well.

External links

• Profile: Samantha Cameron BBC News
• Birth of Arthur Cameron, Samantha Cameron's third child BBC News

Honorary titles
Preceded by Sarah Brown	Spouse of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 2010–	Succeeded by Current