Alexander George Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, styledViscount Weymouth between 1946 and 1992, was a British aristocratic landowner, who sat in the House of Lords from 1992 until 1999, and a self-acclaimed artist and author. 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.
In 1969, Thynn married Hungarian-born Anna Gyarmathy, also known as Anna Gaël, by whom he had two children, Lady Lenka Abigail Thynn and Ceawlin, 8th Marquess of Bath, both of whom were educated at comprehensive school. Lord Bath also acknowledged an illegitimate daughter born circa 2000. He had open sexual relations with over seventy women during his marriage, many of whom lived "grace and favour" in estate cottages. Lord Bath referred to his mistresses as wifelets. Born with the family name Thynne, he dropped the "e" in 1976, as he wanted to emphasise its correct pronunciation to rhyme with "pin" and not "pine". He was known for his colourful style of dress, which he acquired as an art student in Paris in the 1950s, and was a prolific amateur painter who decorated rooms of his home with erotic scenes from the Kama Sutra. After his father's death in 1992, he dismissed his younger brother Lord Christopher Thynne as estate comptroller, evicting him from his home on the Longleat estate. In early 2010, he passed the management of the business to his son, Viscount Weymouth. By one account, the Viscount intended to evict the mistresses from their estate cottages. Some of his father's murals were removed, which caused a rift and led to a boycott by the Marquess of his son's marriage to Emma McQuiston. Lord Bath was admitted to the Royal United Hospital, Bath, on 28 March 2020 and while in hospital tested positive for COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He died whilst infected by the disease on 4 April 2020 at the age of 87.
Appearances and media
In 1999 Thynn appeared in series 6, episode 4 of Time Team, which dealt with the excavation of a cave in the Cheddar Gorge, an area of land owned by him. From 2000 to 2009 Animal Park, a television documentary about the life of keepers and animals at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, England, aired over 9 series on the BBC. It also covered the daily life of workers in Longleat House, the estate and the gardens and regularly featured items about Lord Bath himself. In March 2009, he appeared in episode 4 of Heston's Feasts. The Marquess of Bath, a book by Nesta Wyn Ellis, initially written with Bath's co-operation, was published in the autumn of 2010. Lord Bath's autobiography, collectively called Strictly Private to Public Exposure, was first published as a series by Artnik Books, and since 2002 has been republished by Top Spot Publishing. His other screen credits include an episode of Globe Trekker. He played an aristocrat in the music video for the Pet Shop Boys song Rent. Artist and potter Grayson Perry interviewed the marquess in the third of his three-part 2012 documentary series All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry which focused on Britain's upper class. In 2014 Thynn appeared in All Change at Longleat, a three-part documentary of some of the issues as he passed the running of the house to his son.
