{{Short description|English publisher and politician}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{British barrelled name|Bonham Carter|Carter}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Bonham-Carter | honorific_suffix = | image = Mark Bonham Carter.jpg | party = Liberal (before 1988)<br />Liberal Democrats (after 1988) | office = Member of the House of Lords<br />Lord Temporal | term_start = 21 July 1986 | term_end = 4 September 1994<br />Life Peerage | office4 = Member of Parliament <br /> for Torrington | predecessor4 = George Lambert | successor4 = Percy Browne | term_start4 = 27 March 1958 | term_end4 = 18 September 1959 | birth_date = {{birth date|1922|02|11|df=y}} | birth_place = Marylebone, London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1994|09|04|1922|02|11|df=y}} | death_place = Salerno, Italy | spouse = {{marriage|Leslie Nast|1955}} | children = 3, including Jane | occupation = Publisher, politician | alma_mater = Balliol College, Oxford | education = Winchester College | module = {{Infobox military person |embed = yes |embed_title = Military career |allegiance = {{flagu|United Kingdom}} |branch = British Army |unit = Grenadier Guards |service_years = 1941–1945 |awards = Mentioned in dispatches |website = }} | relatives = Helena Bonham Carter (niece) }}
'''Mark Raymond Bonham Carter, Baron Bonham-Carter''' (11 February 1922 – 4 September 1994)<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=6 September 1994|title=Lord Bonham-Carter|page=23|work=The Times|issue=65052}}</ref> was an English publisher and politician. A member of the Bonham-Carter family, he was created a life peer in 1986.
==Early life== Bonham-Carter was the son of the Liberal activists Sir Maurice Bonham-Carter and his wife, the former Lady Violet Asquith, daughter of the Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. He was the second-youngest of four children: Helen, Laura and Raymond.
Educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read PPE, his studies were interrupted by the Second World War, and he was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards in November 1941.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=35385|supp=y|page=7169|date=16 December 1941}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Captured in Tunisia in 1943 and imprisoned in Italy, he escaped and walked four hundred miles to return to British lines, being mentioned in dispatches. Bonham-Carter concluded the war by standing as the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Barnstaple in the 1945 general election,{{sfnp|Baker|2006|pp=62-63}} before returning to finish the last year of his course at Oxford. He then spent a year at the University of Chicago before going into publishing, working for the Collins publishing firm, but left as his directors did not agree with his political activities.{{sfnp|Baker|2006|pp=64}}
In 1955, he married Leslie, Lady St Just, the former wife of Peter George Grenfell, 2nd Baron St Just (1922–1984), and the younger daughter of American magazine publisher Condé Nast. By her, Bonham-Carter had three daughters: Jane (created Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury), Virginia, and Eliza Bonham Carter. He also had a stepdaughter from his wife's former marriage.
==Torrington== Although Bonham-Carter's sister Laura had married future Liberal MP Jo Grimond in May 1938,{{sfnp|McManus|2001|page=42}} he was in the process of joining the Conservative Party until the Suez Crisis of 1956, and election of Grimmond as Liberal Party leader in the same year.{{sfnp|McManus|2001|page=128}} It was in 1958 that the Torrington by-election was called in a safe Conservative seat, and Bonham-Carter became the Liberal candidate. Much to everyone's surprise, he won, overturning a 9,000 majority, giving the Liberals their first by-election gain since 1929. Bonham-Carter's margin of victory was extremely slim, at just 219 votes. Nonetheless, it was a major boost to the success-deprived Liberals and the first in a string of by-election victories that would make up the postwar Liberal Revival.
Grimond was personally hopeful that the articulate Bonham-Carter would be his designated successor, but it was not to be; at the 1959 general election, just 18 months after his victory, he narrowly lost the seat to the Conservatives. He continued to be a close advisor to Grimond throughout the latter's leadership but would never again be an MP, despite a third, unsuccessful, and equally close candidature for Torrington at the 1964 general election.
==Later life and death== Bonham-Carter found other outlets for his political and publishing interests. He continued to work as a prominent member of the Collins firm, becoming close friends with Roy Jenkins (reportedly his wife's lover) and serving as his literary agent. He became the first chairman of the Race Relations Board 1966–1971, and its successor, the Community Relations Commission 1971–1977. He was also prominent in the Arts world, as one of the directors of the Royal Opera House 1958–1982, a Governor of the Royal Ballet 1960–1994 (chairman of the board after 1985), and vice-chairman of the BBC 1975–1980, being vetoed as chairman by Margaret Thatcher. On 21 July 1986 Bonham-Carter was created a life peer as '''Baron Bonham-Carter''', ''of Yarnbury in the County of Wiltshire''.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=50609 |date=25 July 1986 |page=9829}}</ref> He became Foreign Affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. His last campaign focused on granting British citizenship to ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, a measure that was only passed after his death. He was also an uncle of the actress Helena Bonham Carter.
Bonham-Carter died from a heart attack while holidaying in Italy on 4 September 1994 <ref name=":0" /> and is buried in St. John the Baptist Church in Stockton, Wiltshire.{{cn|date=December 2024}}
==Arms== {{Infobox COA wide |image = |crest = 1st, A Lion's Head erased Or between two Estoiles each within the horns of a Crescent Azure (Carter); 2nd, A Dragon's Head erased Argent guttée de sang between two Fountains (Bonham) |coronet = A Coronet of a Baron |escutcheon = Quarterly: 1st and 4th, Azure two Lions combatant Or collared and lined Gules supporting with their interior paws a Mural Crown Gold (Carter); 2nd and 3rd, Gules a Sword erect between in chief two Cross Crosslets fitchée Argent over all a Chevron of the last (Bonham) |motto = Trusty to the end }}
==See also== *Bonham Carter family
==References==
{{reflist}}
===Sources===
*{{cite book |last=Baker |first=John |date=2006 |title=Ballot Box to Jury Box: The Life and Times of an English Crown Court Judge |location=Winchester |publisher=Waterside Press |isbn=978-1906534004}} *{{cite news |last=Field |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead |date=7 September 1994 |title=Obituary: Lord Bonham-Carter |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bonhamcarter-1447274.html |newspaper=The Independent |location=London}} *{{cite book |last=McManus |first=Michael |date=2001 |title=Jo Grimmond: Towards the Sound of Gunfire |location=Edinburgh |publisher=Berlin Limited |isbn=1843410060}}
== External links == *{{Hansard-contribs | mr-mark-bonham-carter | Mark Bonham Carter }} *{{NPG name}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Torrington | years = 1958–1959 | before = Hon. George Lambert | after = Percy Browne }} {{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonham Carter, Mark Baron Bonham-Carter}} Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Category:Asquith family Category:Military personnel from the City of Westminster Category:People from Marylebone Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Category:BBC governors Category:British Army personnel of World War II Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Bonham-Carter, Mark Bonham Carter of Yarnbury Bonham-Carter, Mark Mark Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:British World War II prisoners of war Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Italy Category:Sons of life peers Bonham Carter 2 Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II