Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April, 1960) is an English broadcaster and journalist who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May. He also writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun.

From a career as a local journalist in the North of England, Clarkson rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s Clarkson has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.

His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public.

As well as the criticism levelled against him, Clarkson also generated a significant following in the public at large, being credited as a factor in the resurgence of Top Gear to the most popular show on BBC Two.


Personal life

Clarkson was born in Doncaster, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to teacher Shirley Gabrielle Ward and travelling salesman Edward Grenville "Eddie" Clarkson; his parents ran a business selling tea cosies. They put the young Jeremy Clarkson's name down in advance for a number of public schools with no idea how they were going to pay the fees, until at the last moment, when he was 13, they made two Paddington Bear stuffed toys for each of their children. These proved so popular that they started selling them through the business with sufficient success to be able to pay the fees for Clarkson to attend Hill House School, Doncaster and later Repton School. By his own account, he was expelled from Repton School for "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself."

Clarkson played the role of a public schoolboy, Atkinson, in a BBC radio Children's Hour serial adaptation of Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings novels until his voice broke.

For an episode of the first series of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast in November 2004, Clarkson was invited to investigate his family history. It included the story of his great-great-great grandfather John Kilner (1792–1857), who invented the Kilner jar: a container for preserved fruit.

Clarkson married his manager,[2] Frances Cain (daughter of VC winner Robert Henry Cain) in May 1993 in Fulham. The couple currently live in the town of Chipping Norton, situated in the Cotswolds, with their three children (Emily, born August 1994; Finlo, born March 1996; and Katya, born November 1998). Known for buying him car-related gifts, for Christmas 2007 Clarkson's wife bought him a Mercedes-Benz 600.

Clarkson's fondness for wearing jeans has been blamed by some for the decline in sales of denim in the mid 1990s, particularly Levi's, due to being associated with middle aged men, the so-called 'Jeremy Clarkson effect'. After fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah labelled Clarkson's dress sense as that of a market trader, he was persuaded to appear on their fashion makeover show What Not to Wear in order to avoid being considered for their all time worst dressed winner award. Their attempts at restyling Clarkson were however all rebuffed, and Clarkson stated he would rather eat his own hair than appear on the show again.

In 2007, Clarkson and co-presenter James May were the first people to reach the magnetic North Pole in a car, chronicled in a Top Gear polar special. Clarkson sustained minor injuries to his legs, back and hand in an intentional high-speed head-on collision with a brick wall while making the 12th series of Top Gear.