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Marina Wheeler

British lawyer, writer and columnist (born 1964)

Summary

British lawyer, writer and columnist (born 1964)

FieldValue
honorific_suffix
known_for*Queen's Counsel (2016)
birth_nameMarina Claire Wheeler
birth_date
birth_placeWest Berlin (now Berlin, Germany)
nationalityBritish
spouse
children4
fatherCharles Wheeler
education*Bedales School
alma_mater{{plainlist
occupation
  • Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom (2019–2020)
  • Author of The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab (2020)
  • European School, Brussels
  • Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
  • Université libre de Bruxelles

Marina Claire Wheeler (born 5 December 1964) is a British lawyer and writer. As a barrister, she specialises in public law, including human rights, and is a member of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. She was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2016.

She is the author of The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab (2020). She was the second wife of former British prime minister Boris Johnson, to whom she was married from 1993 until their divorce in 2020.

Early life and education

Marina Claire Wheeler was born in West Berlin on 5 December 1964, to Charles Wheeler, a BBC correspondent, and his second wife Dip Singh, an Indian Punjabi Sikh. Her elder sister is Shirin Wheeler.

Wheeler was educated at Bedales School and then the European School of Brussels, and then in the early 1980s at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where she wrote for the student magazine Cantab.

At the European School, she became friendly with Boris Johnson, later a journalist and politician.

Career

After Cambridge, Wheeler returned to Brussels and worked there for four years. In 1987, she was called to the Bar, practising from chambers in London at One Crown Office Row. In her work as a barrister, Wheeler specialises in mental health matters and discrimination claims. In January 2004, she was appointed to the B-Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown. In 2009, she joined the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal as a barrister member.

Of her legal work, Wheeler has stated:

In February 2016, she was appointed Queen's Counsel.

In October 2023 she was announced as the Labour Party's advisor on protecting women from workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.

Personal life

On 8 May 1993, a pregnant Wheeler married her childhood friend Boris Johnson, whose previous marriage had ended 12 days earlier. Together they have four children.

In September 2018, Johnson and Wheeler issued a statement confirming that after 25 years of marriage, they had separated "several months ago" and begun divorce proceedings. They reached a financial settlement in February 2020, and the divorce was finalised in 2020.

In August 2019, Wheeler revealed that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer earlier in the year and had undergone two operations to be in remission.

Memoirs

Main article: The Lost Homestead

In 2020 her memoir The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab, detailing her family's history in India, was published. Her ancestry goes back to the city of Sargodha in West Punjab, present-day Pakistan, with her maternal family migrating to present-day India after the Partition of India. It was shortlisted for the 2021 RSL Christopher Bland Prize.

References

References

  1. (5 December 2021). "Complicated love life: Meet Boris Johnson' six children and two ex-wives".
  2. Williams, Zoe. (22 January 2016). "New QCs Justine Thornton and Marina Wheeler: Is the legal profession still sexist?". The Guardian.
  3. Wheeler, Marina. (2020). "The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab". Hodder & Stoughton.
  4. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080705151419/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2246935/Charles-Wheeler.html Sir Charles Wheeler] (obituary) at telegraph.co.uk
  5. (3 May 2008). "Family of influence behind Boris Johnson". The Daily Telegraph.
  6. Amit Roy, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110604142215/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080511/jsp/7days/story_9254821.jsp Boris gets on his bike] from ''[[The Telegraph (Kolkata). The Telegraph of Calcutta]]'', 11 May 2008.
  7. Brian Wheeler, ''[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7376621.stm The Boris Johnson story]'' dated 4 May 2008 at news.bbc.co.uk
  8. "One Crown Office Row - Barrister Details".
  9. "Marina Wheeler".
  10. "One Crown Office Row - Article".
  11. (11 January 2016). "''Guardian Legal Network''".
  12. (8 October 2023). "Boris Johnson's ex-wife Marina Wheeler is Labour's sex harassment adviser".
  13. Andy McSmith. (13 February 2016). "Marina Wheeler, profile: The brains behind Boris Johnson". [[The Independent]].
  14. Wheeler, Brian. (4 May 2008). "The Boris Johnson story". BBC News.
  15. (7 September 2018). "Boris Johnson and wife to divorce". BBC News.
  16. Ames, Jonathan. (18 February 2020). "PM reaches financial settlement with estranged wife". [[The Times]].
  17. Simpson, Annabel. (6 May 2020). "Marina Wheeler opens up about life post-Boris Johnson".
  18. (12 August 2019). "I put off test that spotted my cervical cancer, says Boris Johnson's wife Marina Wheeler". [[The Times]].
  19. Wheeler, Marina. (2020). "The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab". Hodder & Stoughton.
  20. Murtaza Ali Shah. (2 May 2015). "London Mayor, wife wish to visit 'amazing' Pakistan | World".
  21. (3 May 2015). "London mayor, wife wish to visit Pakistan soon – The Express Tribune".
  22. (17 May 2021). "RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2021 – Shortlist announced".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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