William Astor

William Waldorf "Bill" Astor II, 3rd Viscount Astor (13 August 1907 – 7 March 1966) was an English businessman and Conservative Party politician. He was also a member of the Astor family.

Background and education

William was the eldest son of Waldorf Astor and Nancy Witcher Langhorne. He was educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford.

Political career

In 1932, Astor was appointed secretary to Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, League of Nations Committee of Enquiry in what was then known as Manchuria. First elected to the House of Commons in 1935, he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Fulham East until 1945. Between 1936 and 1937 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Samuel Hoare, who was then made Secretary of State for the Home Department in the new cabinet of Neville Chamberlain in 1937.

Astor left parliament for a time, but returned as the Conservative MP for Wycombe in the 1951 general election, serving for ten months. On his father's death in 1952, he inherited his title, becoming the 3rd Viscount Astor. Astor took his seat in the House of Lords, forcing a by-election in Wycombe, which was won by the Conservative candidate John Hall. During the 1963 Profumo Affair Astor was accused of having an affair with Mandy Rice-Davies. In response to being told during one of the trials arising out of the scandal that Astor had denied having an affair with her, Rice-Davies famously replied "He would, wouldn't he?"

Astor then took over the family's Cliveden estate in Buckinghamshire, where he and his family continued to live until 1966. Active in thoroughbred horse racing, he inherited Cliveden Stud, a horse farm and breeding operation in the village of Taplow near Maidenhead.

Marriages and children

Viscount Astor married three times:

Firstly, on 14 June 1945 he married Hon Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton (born 20 January 1920, died 4 February 2013), daughter of Richard Henry Brinsley Norton, 6th Baron Grantley. They had one son before divorce in 1953:

• William Waldorf Astor III, 4th Viscount Astor (born 27 December 1951)

Secondly, on 26 April 1955 he married Phillipa Victoria Hunloke (born 10 December 1930, died 20 July 2005), a daughter of Henry Philip Hunloke and Lady Anne Cavendish and a granddaughter of Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire. They had one daughter before divorce in 1960:

• Hon Emily Mary Astor (born 9 June 1956)

Finally, on 14 October 1960 Astor married Janet Bronwen Alun Pugh (born 6 June 1930). They had two daughters:

• Hon Janet Elizabeth Astor (born 1 December 1961), second wife of Charles Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March and Kinrara
• Hon Pauline Marian Astor (born 26 March 1964)

Astor died in Nassau, Bahamas, at age 58 from a heart attack and was buried in the Octagon Temple at Cliveden. His son succeeded him in the viscountcy.