#8175, Nicholas Cosmo BONSOR

Sir Nicholas Bonsor, 4th Bt, who has died aged 80 was, as Conservative MP for Nantwich and then for Upminster, one of the last of the "knights of the shires"; and despite his Euroscepticism - or perhaps because of it - he was a Foreign Office minister for John Major's final two years in office.  Sleek, built like a bull and understandably grand, Bonsor was both a Hambro and descended  from Lord Nelson.  He farmed 600 acres in Buckinghamshire and, with great effectiveness, chaired the British Field Sports Society.  A barrister with City interests and a "name" in 82 syndicates at Lloyds, Bonsor seemed the quintessential patrician backbencher.  Then in the autumn of 1994 he staged a challenge to Sir Marcus Fox for the chair of the 1922 Committee, running him close.

Bonsor was also the first leader, from 1980, of the European Reform Group, a Eurosceptic ginger group demanding reassertion of the power of national governments over EC institutions.  Later he rebelled three times over the Maastricht Treaty and abstained five times more.  Chairing the British Field Sports Society between 1987 and 1993, Bonsor was the principal spokesman of the country sports lobby.  He was commissioned in 1964 into the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry and joined Hambros Bank in 1966 as a trainee and the next year was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple practising until 1975.  He stopped taking on prosecutions when he became convinced the police were fixing evidence.  After an active political career he returned to the Bar in 2003, practising until 2010.  He was deputy lieutenant for Buchinghamshire in 2007 and was succeeded as 5th Baronet by his elder son Alexander Cosmo Walrond Bonsor.

Extracts from the Daily Telegraph obituary dated 31st March 2023 are acknowledged.