Chris Patten - Early Life

Early Life

Chris Patten's father, Frank, a jazz-drummer turned popular-music publisher and his mother Joan sent him to a Catholic primary school, Our Lady of the Visitation, in Greenford, and later the independent St Benedict's School in Ealing, west London where he won an exhibition to study history at Balliol College, Oxford - the first member of his family to attend university. In 1965, Patten worked for the campaign of New York Mayor John Lindsay, where he reported on the television performance of rival William F. Buckley, Jr.. He worked for the Conservative Party from 1966, first as desk officer and then director (from 1974 to 1979) of the Conservative Research Department.