Nicholas Budgen
British politician (1937-1998)
Nicholas William "Nick" Budgen (3 November 1937 – 26 October 1998) was a British Conservative Party politician.
Early life and career
Named after St Nicholas Church in Newport, Shropshire of which his grandfather was a priest, Budgen was baptised at Lichfield Cathedral by his grandfather, who had also baptised Enoch Powell, as well as marrying his parents. Thirty-seven years later Budgen would succeed Powell as the Conservative member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West.
Budgen was educated at St Edward's School in Oxford and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Budgen was raised by his grandfather after his father George had been killed during the Second World War at Tobruk on 16 June 1942, one of his uncles having been killed during the First World War and another during the Second World War at Burma in March 1945.
As a member of Cambridge University Conservative Association, Peter Temple-Morris, a future Conservative MP, recalls that the first time Harold Macmillan used his famous quote "events, dear boy, events" was in response to a question Budgen had asked in a small group discussion.
During his national service he rose to the rank of lieutenant in the North Staffordshire Regiment, before transferring to the Staffordshire Yeomanry in 1959. He became a barrister at Gray's Inn in 1962. Bugden was also a very keen amateur rider under National Hunt rules and in the spring of 1971, won two steeplechases (at Market Rasen and Stratford) on his mare Jocelin, who later became the dam of the very useful steeplechaser Brown Chamberlin.
Political career
In the 1970 general election he stood for the Conservatives in Birmingham Small Heath, but was unsuccessful.
The public source identifies “Nicholas Budgen” as british politician (1937-1998). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nicholas, Budgen and British.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7025126. VIAF identifies the subject as 197883425. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1998, 1942 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nicholas Budgen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.