Portrait of Nicholas Soames

Birthday profile

Nicholas Soames

Nicholas Soames, English politician, Minister of State for the Armed Forces

Born
February 12, 1948
Age in 2026
78
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1948

About Nicholas Soames

Arthur Nicholas Winston Soames, Baron Soames of Fletching, (born 12 February 1948), is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Sussex from 1997 to 2019, having previously served as the MP for Crawley from 1983 to 1997. Soames was Minister of State for the Armed Forces from 1994 to 1997 in the government of John Major. He had the whip removed on 3 September 2019, for voting against the government, before it was restored on 29 October. His main political interests are defence, international relations, rural affairs and industry. He is a grandson of former prime minister Winston Churchill. == Early life, education and military service == Soames was born in 1948 in Croydon, Surrey, the eldest son of Christopher and Mary Soames. He is a grandson of the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and a great-nephew of Lady Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide, the wife of the founder of the Scout movement, Lord Baden-Powell. Industrialist Rupert Soames is Soames's brother, and journalist Emma Soames is a sister. Simon Hoggart, writing in The Guardian, related an anecdote of Soames's childhood: "He gave me the true version of what I had always suspected was an apocryphal story. In or around 1953, when Soames was five, he didn't know how important his grandfather was until someone told him.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Nicholas Soames timeline

  1. In 1974, he became a personal assistant; first to Sir James Goldsmith and then in 1976 to United States Senator Mark Hatfield, whose employ he left in 1978 to become a director of Bland Welch, Lloyd's Brokers.
  2. Mid Sussex Conservative Constituency Association has received over £1 million in donations, with Soames receiving well over £100,000 from private military company Aegis Defence Services Ltd from 2010 onwards.
  3. On 28 October 2022, he was created Baron Soames of Fletching, of Fletching in the County of East Sussex.

The world when Nicholas Soames was born

Nicholas Soames was born in 1948. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1948

  • #1 song"Twelfth Street Rag" – Pee Wee Hunt
  • Top movieHamlet
  • Top TV showTexaco Star Theater (Milton Berle)
  • Best-selling bookThe Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentCleveland Indians win the World Series
  • Top headlineState of Israel declared
  • Technology milestoneLong-playing vinyl record (LP) introduced
  • Defining fadTelevision sets in homes
  • Notable inventionVelcro
  • World population2.50 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championCleveland Indians (World Series)
  • Also wonBaltimore Bullets (BAA)
  • U.S. population146.6M

1948 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Nicholas Soames's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19482026
Gas$0.26$3.45/gal
Average home$8,300$435,000
Average income$5,000$67,500
Minimum wage$0.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.40$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population146.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.