Early Life
Born at Westminster Hospital in London, Goldsmith is the middle child of Sir James Goldsmith and his third wife, the Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. Goldsmith was raised at Ormeley Lodge in Ham with his siblings, Jemima and Ben. He has five paternal half-siblings, and is also half-brother to Robin and India Jane Birley, his mother's children from her first marriage. His maternal great-grandfather was the 7th Marquess of Londonderry, the well-known Ulster Unionist politician.
As a child, Goldsmith was an avid reader of naturalist Gerald Durrell's work and had a committed passion for Sir David Attenborough's wildlife programmes. He later recalled, " was my hero, and it was his work that made me fall in love with the natural world." His ecological interests were further nourished when his father gave him a copy of Helena Norberg-Hodge's book Ancient Futures, with a note saying, "This will change your life."
Read more about this topic: Zac Goldsmith
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Early education can only promise to help make the third and fourth and fifth years of life good ones. It cannot insure without fail that any tomorrow will be successful. Nothing “fixes” a child for life, no matter what happens next. But exciting, pleasing early experiences are seldom sloughed off. They go with the child, on into first grade, on into the child’s long life ahead.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Next to our free political institutions, our free public-school system ranks as the greatest achievement of democratic life in America ...”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)