Christopher Bathurst, 3rd Viscount Bledisloe

Christopher Hiley Ludlow Bathurst, 3rd Viscount Bledisloe, QC (24 June 1934 – 12 May 2009) was a British barrister and politician.

Bathurst was the son of Benjamin Bathurst, 2nd Viscount Bledisloe. He was educated at Eton, and Trinity College, Oxford. He served in the military as a Second Lieutenant of the 11th Hussars from 1954 to 1955 and went into law; he was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1959. In 1978 he became a Queen's Counsel (QC), as his father had before him.

Lord Bledisloe was the President of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTC) also known as the Cresta. Lord Bledisloe had the distinction of being one of the hereditary peers elected by the other hereditary peers to take a seat in the House of Lords, which most hereditary peers lost by the House of Lords Act 1999. The Bledisloe seat is Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, from which the territorial designation of the peerage was taken. The Bathursts had been one of the leading county families in Gloucestershire for many centuries. He sat as a crossbencher.

Lord Bledisloe married Elizabeth Mary Thompson in 1962. They had two sons and one daughter but were divorced in 1986. His elder son and successor, Rupert Bathurst, 4th Viscount Bledisloe, is a noted portrait artist. Bledisloe died on 12 May 2009. His death was announced on 14 May 2009 to the House of Lords by the Lords' Speaker, Baroness Hayman.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Bledisloe
• Viscount Bledisloe - Daily Telegraph obituary

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Benjamin Ludlow Bathurst	Viscount Bledisloe 1979–2009	Succeeded by Rupert Edward Ludlow Bathurst