Alexander George Thynn ‑ 7th Marquess of Bath-styled Viscount Weymouth between 1946 and 1992, and a British aristocratic landowner, who sat in the House of Lords from 1992 until 1999, and a self- acclaimed artist and author ‑ died on 4 April, 2020 at the age of 87 due to COVID-19.
Ranked 359th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 with an estimated wealth of £157 million, Lord Bath was in the media spotlight for his hippy fashion-sense and for developing Longleat as an animal sanctuary and tourist attraction.
Thynn was born in London, the son of Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath and Daphne Fielding, and grew up at his family seat, Longleat, a grand Elizabethan house set in Wiltshire parkland landscaped in the 18th century by Capability Brown. After attending Ludgrove School and Eton College, he joined the Life Guards for National Service, being commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1951. He then went up to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was President of the Bullingdon Club, before embarking upon a modern-day European Grand Tour.
As Viscount Weymouth, he stood in the February 1974 General Election as a Wessex regionalist, believing that Wessex would be better off as a devolved region of the UK. Shortly after that General Election, he became one of the founders of the Wessex Regionalist Party. He stood for the party in the first ever elections to the European Parliament in 1979.
After succeeding to his father's marquessate and other titles in 1992, Lord Bath sat in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat, until he lost his right to sit in the Upper House following New Labour's House of Lords reforms which ousted all but 92 of the hereditary peers. Among other issues, he spoke in favour of devolution for the regions of England.