Christopher James, 5th Baron Northbourne

Christopher George Walter James, 5th Baron Northbourne, DL, FRICS (born 18 February 1926) is a British farmer and businessman. He is one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, sitting as a crossbencher.

Biography

The son of Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne, and his wife, Katharine Louise Nickerson of Boston, Massachusetts, he succeeded to his father's title in 1982. He was educated at Eton College in Berkshire and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1959.

James is the Cross-bench spokesman for families and children in the House of Lords. He is deputy chair of Toynbee Hall and was chair of Betteshanger Farms Ltd until 1997. Since 1999, he has been chair of the Parenting Support Forum and governor of Wye College. Since 2002, he has been also chair of the Stepney Children's Fund. He is a Deputy Lieutenant and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).

On 18 July 1959, he married Marie Sygne Claudel, daughter of Henri Claudel. They have three sons, the heir Charles Walter Henry James, Anthony Christopher Walter Paul and Sebastian Richard Edward Cuthbert and a daughter, Ophelia Mary Catherine Aliki. Their garden at Elizabethan Northbourne Court near Deal in Kent, set within the standing former outbuildings (the manor house burned in the 18th century) and upon ancient terracing, nurtured for a century, is reputed one of the finest in England; it is not generally open to the public.