Chris Patten Biography

Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC is a politician from Britain. He was the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong, serving between 1992 and 1997. Before that, he was the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992. He became a life peer in 2005, and since 2003, he has held the position of the Chancellor of Oxford University. A Lancashire native, Patten grew up in London and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. After obtaining a modern history degree in 1965, he became active in politics and joined the Conservative Party. In 1979, he won his first parliamentary election to become an MP from Bath. In 1989, the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made him the Secretary of State for the Environment. During the tenure of John Major as the PM, Patten served as the Chairman of the Conservative Party and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and played an instrumental role in his party’s victory in the 1992 general election. As the last Governor of Hong Kong, he supervised the final years of British governance in the colony and readied it for the transition to Chinese control in 1997.