David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale

David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale (3 November 1935 – 10 March 2021) was a British Conservative politician and businessman.

Early life David Wolfson was born on 3 November 1935 in Willesden, London. The son of Charles and Hylda Wolfson (née Jarvis), he was educated at Clifton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in economics and law in 1956. He was further educated in Stanford University, California, where he received a Master of Business Administration in 1959.

Career Wolfson was director of Great Universal Stores (GUS) from 1973 to 1978 and from 1993 to 2000, and chairman from 1996 to 2000. The retailer had been founded by his uncle Isaac Wolfson as a mail order clothing company. He was first introduced to Margaret Thatcher by the Conservative Party treasurer Alistair McAlpine in 1975. he was created a life peer with the title Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, of Trevose in the County of Cornwall on 26 March 1991. His membership in the House of Lords was terminated on 13 June 2017 as he did not attend a sitting of the House during the previous session.

Personal life Wolfson married three times. He married his first wife, Patricia Rawlings (now Baroness Rawlings) in 1962; they divorced in 1967 and she subsequently became a Conservative MEP and then life peer. He married secondly Susan Davis, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. (One of those sons, Simon, followed in his footsteps as head of Next, and in the footsteps of both parents as a Conservative life peer.) The couple separated and then divorced. He married thirdly Alicia Trevor in May 2018 at Guildford Registry Office. They had a son, Tom, born in 2006.

He owned Quarwood, a Victorian Gothic house near Stow-on-the-Wold. The estate was managed by a paid couple, and as part of their remuneration, they were given the house as their home; Wolfson "bed-and-breakfasted" with the young family.

Wolfson enjoyed golf and bridge.