About Peter Bottomley
Sir Peter James Bottomley (born 30 July 1944) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1975 until 2024, last representing Worthing West. First elected at a by-election for the former constituency of Woolwich West, he served as its MP until its abolition at the 1983 general election, and then for Eltham its successor constituency, until 1997. He was then selected to contest Worthing West at the 1997 general election, being returned seven times before losing to Labour's Beccy Cooper at the 2024 general election. Following the 2019 general election, Bottomley became the longest-serving MP being styled Father of the House for the duration of that parliament. He then became the first Father to be unseated rather than retire or die in post. == Early life and career == Born at Newport, Shropshire, the son of Sir James Bottomley, classical scholar and a wartime Army officer who later joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Barbara, née Vardon, a social worker, he was baptised at St Swithun's Parish Church, Cheswardine, Shropshire, where his parents married. After seven school changes before the age of 11, he attended junior high school in Washington, D.C., and was then educated at Westminster School before going up to read economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, following his father (Sir James), grandfather (Sir William Bottomley), father-in-law and father-in-law's father in graduating from the college. His supervisor was James Mirrlees, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. Before university, Bottomley worked around Australia, including three weeks teaching at Geelong Grammar School deputising for the explorer and teacher John Béchervaise, and unloading trucks in Melbourne docks. In between, he spent four days walking in Mount Field National Park in a group with Tenzing Norgay.
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