Quick Facts
Biography
Michael John Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham (born 25 January 1938), is a British hereditary peer and environmentalist.
He is the son of Conservative politician and government minister John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham and Beryl Nancy Pearson
He was chairman of Pearson PLC from 1993 to 1997.
A lifelong environmentalist, Blakenham was chairman of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew Gardens as well as chairman of the RSPB. He has continued to develop the Blakenham Woodland Garden, which was created by his father. He is also the owner of the island of Little Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.
Blakenham lives in Suffolk and is the leader of the local political party Suffolk Together. He represented the party as a member of Mid Suffolk District Council from 2007 to 2015 under the name Michael Blakenham. During the 2014 European Parliament election he endorsed Rupert Read, lead candidate on the Green list in the East of England constituency.
Through his sister, Joanna Freda Hare, he is a brother-in-law of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. His son and heir apparent, Caspar John Hare is a philosophy professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His daughter, Cressida Cowell, is an author.