Peter Bottomley - Early Life

Early Life

Bottomley was born in Newport, Shropshire, the son of Sir James Bottomley, retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and of the late Barbara, née Vardon, a social worker. After seven school changes before the age of eleven, he was educated at a junior high school in Washington, D.C. and then Westminster School before reading economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, following his father, grandfather, father-in-law and father-in-law's father to the College. His supervisor was James Mirrlees, who later gained the Nobel prize for Economics. After university, he became a lorry driver and joined the Transport and General Workers Union before moving on to industrial sales and industrial relations. In the early 1970s he co-founded in South Lambeth the Neighbourhood Council, resulting in the creation of football pitches and other facilities at Larkhall Park. His last job before entering Parliament was putting lights outside theatres and cinemas in London's West End.