John Jacob Astor IV IV was born on July 13, 1864 at his parents' country estate Ferncliff in Rhinebeck, New York. He was the youngest of five children and only son of businessman, collector, and race horse breeder/owner William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and socialite Caroline Webster "Lina" Schermerhorn. His four elder sisters were Emily, Helen, Charlotte, and Caroline ("Carrie"). He was a great-grandson of fur-trader John Jacob Astor and Sarah Cox Todd, whose fortune made the Astor family one of the wealthiest in the United States. Astor's paternal grandfather William Backhouse Astor, Sr. was a prominent real estate businessman. Through his paternal grandmother, Margaret
John Astor, 3rd Baron Astor of Hever John Astor, 3rd Baron Astor of Hever John Jacob "Johnny" Astor VIII, 3rd Baron Astor of Hever, PC DL (born 16 June 1946) is an English businessman and politician. He is an hereditary Lord Temporal, sitting with the Conservatives. Astor was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence from 2010–2015. Astor is a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent. Astor was born 16 June 1946. He is the eldest of the five children of Gavin Astor, 2nd Baron Astor of Hever, and Lady Irene Haig. Astor succeeded to the peerage after his father died from cancer in June 1984. His