In office
2 May 1997 – 27 June 2007
Monarch
Elizabeth II
Deputy
John Prescott
Preceded by
John Major
Succeeded by
Gordon Brown
Member of Parliament for Sedgefield
In office
9 June 1983 – 27 June 2007
Preceded by
New Constituency
Succeeded by
Phil Wilson
Majority
18,449 (44.5%)
Born
6 May 1953 (1953-05-06) (age 55) Edinburgh, Scotland
Nationality
British
Political party
Labour
Spouse
Cherie Booth
Residence
Connaught Square
Alma mater
St John's College, Oxford
Occupation
Envoy
Profession
Barrister
Religion
Roman Catholic
Background and family life
Blair was born at the Queen Mary Maternity Home[6] in Edinburgh, Scotland on 6 May 1953 the second son of Leo and Hazel Blair (née Corscadden). Leo Blair, the illegitimate son of two English actors, had been adopted by a Glasgow shipyard worker named James Blair and his wife Mary as a baby. Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher and Orangeman who had moved to Glasgow in 1916 but returned to (and later died in) Ballyshannon in 1923, where his wife Sarah Margaret née Lipsett gave birth to Blair's mother Hazel above her family's grocery shop. The Lipsett family in Donegal supposedly originated with a German Jewish immigrant to Ireland prior to the 18th century. George Corscadden was from a family of Protestant farmers in County Donegal, Ireland, who descended from Scottish settlers that took their family name from Garscadden, now part of Glasgow. The Blair family was often taken on holiday to Rossnowlagh, a beach resort near Hazel's hometown of Ballyshannon in south County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.[citation needed] Tony Blair has one elder brother, William Blair, who is a barrister and Queen's Counsel (QC), and a younger sister, Sarah. Blair spent the first 19 months of his life at the family home in Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh. During this period his father worked as a junior tax inspector whilst also studying for a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. His family spent three and a half years in the 1950s living in Adelaide, Australia, where his father was a lecturer in law at the University of Adelaide. The Blairs lived close to the university, in the suburb of Dulwich.
The family returned to Britain in the late 1950s, living for a time with Hazel Blair's stepfather William McClay and her mother at their home in Stepps, near Glasgow. He spent the remainder of his childhood in Durham, England, his father being by then a lecturer at Durham University. After attending Durham's Chorister School from 1961 to 1966, Blair boarded at Fettes College, a notable independent school in Edinburgh, where he met Charlie Falconer (a pupil at the rival Edinburgh Academy), whom he later appointed Lord Chancellor. He reportedly modelled himself on Mick Jagger. His teachers were unimpressed with him: his biographer, John Rentoul reported that, "All the teachers I spoke to when researching the book said he was a complete pain in the backside, and they were very glad to see the back of him".[15] Blair was arrested at Fettes, having being mistaken for a burglar as he climbed into his dormitory using a ladder, after being out late.[16]
Tony Blair's wife, Cherie Booth QC
After Fettes, Blair spent a year in London, where he attempted to find fame as a rock music promoter, before going up to the University of Oxford to read jurisprudence at St John's College. As a student, he played guitar and sang for a rock band called Ugly Rumours. During this time, he dated future American Psycho director Mary Harron. He became influenced by fellow student and priest Peter Thomson, who awakened within Blair a deep concern for religious faith and left wing politics. Whilst at Oxford, Blair's mother Hazel died of cancer which was said to have greatly affected Blair. After graduating from Oxford in 1976 with a Second Class Honours BA in Jurisprudence, Blair became a member of Lincoln's Inn, enrolled as a pupil barrister and met his future wife, Cherie Booth (daughter of the actor Tony Booth) at the Chambers founded by Derry Irvine (who was to be Blair's first Lord Chancellor), 11 King's Bench Walk Chambers.He acted predominantly for employers or wealthier clients, as in Nethermere v. Gardiner where he unsuccessfully defended employers that had refused holiday pay to employees at a trouser factory. Rentoul records that, according to his lawyer friends, Blair was much less concerned about which party he was affiliated with than about his aim of becoming Prime Minister.