William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)

He was born in Bristol and was brought up at Cholwell House in Somerset, built in 1855 by his great-grandfather, a country solicitor. Failing his scholarship exam to Eton, he took and won a scholarship to Charterhouse, meaning that his father only had to pay half of the school fees. Generally remembered as "pompous," he gained a reputation for playing the stock market and was later parodied by his classmate, Simon Raven, as the "deeply unlikeable" and "scheming opportunist" Somerset Lloyd-James in his book Alms for Oblivion. From Charterhouse, he won another scholarship to read history at Balliol College, Oxford, becoming President of the Oxford Union in 1951.

In his memoirs he stated, "my interest in business and politics comes from my American side". But, immediately after graduating, he 'accidentally' began his career in journalism with the Financial Times and during the same period he contested the seat of Chester-le-Street for the Conservatives, but lost on both occasions. In 1960, he moved to The Sunday Times as its Deputy Editor before his appointment as Editor of The Times at "the precocious age" of 38, holding that position from 1967 to 1981. He was a member of the BBC's Board of Governors and as Chairman of the Arts Council he halved the number of organisations receiving funding and reduced the Council's direct activities. He was created a life peer in 1988 as Baron Rees-Mogg, of Hinton Blewett in the County of Avon, and sat in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher. In 1993, he took legal action to prevent the UK from ratifying the Maastricht Treaty which effectively created the EU. Prime Minister John Major was "delighted" when the judicial review failed and the judges dismissed his claim that it was the most important constitutional case for 300 years as, "an exaggeration". He continued his opposition and in 2005 he was a member of the European Reform Forum that advocated, "the renegotiation of British membership within the EU".

He co-authored three books with James Dale Davidson, pushing their ideas on the futures of investment and capitalism that earned him the sobriquet, 'Mystic Mogg'. In 1995, in response to all his books up to then, an article in the Executive Intelligence Review said that Rees-Mogg, "openly espouses the Conservative Revolution call for a return to feudalism, in which 95% or more of the population would be reduced to serfdom in the 'Information Age'. In the Jan. 5, 1995 issue of the London Times, he wrote a commentary to that effect, titled "It's the Elite Who Matter - In Future Britain Must Concentrate on Educating the Top 5%, on Whose Success We Shall All Depend." Overthrowing all pretense to Christian charity, his lordship embraces the New Age paganism of Newt Gingrich's futurologist, Alvin Toffler." The most infamous of Rees-Mogg's books is The Sovereign Individual published in 1997 in which he pushes the idea that the digital age will splinter society, bring about a rapid end to welfare and the nation-state, and give rise to an elite few - the sovereign individuals - who will be above tax and government. In 2014, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, called it the most influential book he'd read, and in 2018 Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair's former press secretary) said it was, "the most important book you have never heard of (and) may explain (Jacob) Rees Mogg's love of hard Brexit".

In 1962, he married his secretary, Gillian Morris, whose father (Thomas Morris) was a car salesman from Hackney in East London and Mayor of St. Pancras in 1961-62. Their wedding reception was held at the St. Pancras Town Hall. They were the parents of five children of whom the most conspicuous are the ex-Minister for Brexit Opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg and his younger sister, Annunziata. In 1964, he stretched himself to buy Ston Easton Park in Somerset and partially restored it before having to sell up in 1978. He lived for the rest of his life between London and The Old Rectory at Hinton Blewett, Somerset.