Mark Pritchard (politician) - Early and Professional Life

Early and Professional Life

Pritchard was brought up and educated in Herefordshire. He then became a marketing communications director.

He married his American wife (Sondra) a former Pan Am flight attendant in May 1997. She was born in California – but spent her childhood in Washington State. She attended Seattle University.

Pritchard, has what he described on BBC Radio 4, an “unorthodox background” for a Conservative Member of Parliament. For the first five years of his life he was brought up in a Victorian orphanage in Hereford. He later grew in foster care living in a council house.Possibly the first Conservative MP to have risen from such a background.

He told his local newspaper that his early years were years of “love and warmth” and that he did not have “a single bad memory” of his time in the orphanage.

He was educated at Aylestone School, Hereford, Herefordshire, England - a comprehensive school. He was quoted in the London Evening Standard as having established ‘The Old Boys Comprehensive Lunch Club’ “to show the Conservative Party as a broad church”. It was reported this upset some privately educated MPs, notably Old Etonians.

Pritchard studied at the London Guildhall University and has a Master of Arts degree in Marketing Management. He also holds a Post- Graduate Diploma. He holds numerous other professional qualifications and is a member of several professional bodies. Chartered Institute of Marketing Member), Institute of Public Relations (Member), Market Research Society (Associate), Chartered Institute of Journalists (Associate).

Pritchard ran his own marketing consultancy before entering Parliament.