Her given name originally being thought up by her grandmother,[2] Nigella Lawson was born to Nigel Lawson (now Baron Lawson of Blaby),[3] a Conservative politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher's cabinet, and the late Vanessa Salmon,[4] a socialite and member of the formerly influential Jewish family who co-owned the Lyons Corner House empire.[5] The family kept homes in Kensington and Chelsea, but Lawson's parents divorced in the 1980s.[6] They both remarried; her father to a House of Commons researcher, Therese Maclear, and her mother to philosopher, A. J. Ayer.[5] With Lawson's father being a prominent politician, one of the things she found most frustrating was the many judgements and pre-conceptions made about her.[2] There was a time when Lawson did not get on with her father, mostly during her parents' divorce, and she only got on with her mother when she reached adulthood.[7] Being unhappy as a child has been attributed, by Lawson, partly to the problematic relationship she had with her mother.[6]
Lawson's school years were difficult; she had to move schools nine times between the ages of nine and 18. "I was just difficult, disruptive, good at school work, but rude, I suspect, and too highly-strung", Lawson reflected.[8] Her father originally chose not to believe the reports of her disruptive behaviour and thought the school had the wrong person.[7] Lawson reluctantly attended a private school in the Midlands and later returned to London's Godolphin and Latymer School sixth form where she began to show skill academically.[7] She worked for many department stores in London,[9] and went on to graduate from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University[9] with a degree in medieval and modern languages.[10] She also lived in Florence for a period.[11]
Lawson's mother died of liver cancer at the age of 48 in 1985, when Lawson was 25.[5][11] Her siblings include her late sister Thomasina, who died of breast cancer in 1993 during her early thirties;[8][12] another sister, Horatia; and a brother, Dominic, former editor of The Sunday Telegraph.[13] She is also a cousin to both George Monbiot and Fiona Shackleton through the Salmons.[14]
Taking part in the third series of the BBC family-history documentary series, Who Do You Think You Are?, Lawson sought to uncover some of her family's ancestry. She traced her ancestors to Ashkenazi, lower-class Jews who originate from eastern Europe and Germany, leaving Lawson surprised not to have Iberian-Sephardi ancestry in the family as she had believed.[15] She also uncovered that her maternal great-great-great grandfather, Coenraad Sammes (later Coleman Joseph), had fled to England from Amsterdam in 1830 to escape a prison sentence following a conviction for theft.[15][16] It was his daughter, Hannah, who married Samuel Gluckstein, father-in-law and business partner of Barnett Salmon and father of Isidore and Montague Gluckstein, who together with Barnett founded J. Lyons and Co. in 1887.[17][15] The episode first broadcast on 11 October 2006 was watched by 6.1 million viewers.
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