Early Life
Born at Westminster Hospital in London, Goldsmith is the middle child of Sir James Goldsmith and his third wife, the Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. Goldsmith was raised at Ormeley Lodge in Ham with his siblings, Jemima and Ben. He has five paternal half-siblings, and is also half-brother to Robin and India Jane Birley, his mother's children from her first marriage. His maternal great-grandfather was the 7th Marquess of Londonderry, the well-known Ulster Unionist politician.
As a child, Goldsmith was an avid reader of naturalist Gerald Durrell's work and had a committed passion for Sir David Attenborough's wildlife programmes. He later recalled, " was my hero, and it was his work that made me fall in love with the natural world." His ecological interests were further nourished when his father gave him a copy of Helena Norberg-Hodge's book Ancient Futures, with a note saying, "This will change your life."
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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