Nigel was born in 1945 in London and his family moved to Huish House, Old Basing in 1947 to be near his grandfather at Hackwood. He was educated at Eton and read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Christchurch, Oxford. He spent a year travelling and studying in Europe before training as a Chartered Accountant with Dixon, Wilson, Tubbs and Gillett. In 1971, a year after qualifying, he joined Charter Consolidated where he worked until 1987. He spent two years from 1974 in Johannesburg as an assistant to the finance director of the Anglo-American Corporation and his roles in Charter included running New Business and Corporate Financial Services. He was their nominated director on various companies covering such diverse areas as merchant banking and stock broking, civil engineering and coal contracting, refrigeration and flexible manufacturing systems. In the quoted sector he has served as a non-executive director of Johnson Matthey and Govett Strategic Investment Trust. From 1987 he has been finance director of Helical Bar and from 1993 to 2010 he was Chairman of Avocet Mining developing gold mines in Malaysia, Tajikistan, Indonesia and Burkina Faso. He is Chairman of Reaction Engines, a company developing a space plane that has the potential to enable safe and cost-effective access to space. 
He has always taken an active and practical interest in the political process: in the 1980’s he formed Residents Against Property Speculators which successfully promoted a government bill to change the 10% rule on extensions to blocks of flats; as Trustee of the Dyslexia Educational Trust he worked with civil servants to promote specialist teacher training courses, and is now working with government to address legislative and regulatory issues associated with space travel. In 1968 Nigel married Anna Colquhoun whom he met when they were both up at Oxford and they have four married sons, the youngest of whom is his chaplain, and 14 grandchildren. Anna is currently Chairman of Hampshire County Council and as far as is known these two posts have never before been filled by a married couple at the same time. Home and family are extremely important and recent years have been spent developing the farm, garden and shoot at Huish alongside an active business life and spending time with children and grandchildren. He reads unusually widely, enjoys opera, and plays bridge, golf, tennis, and Hunt the Thimble with his grandchildren. During his year in office, Nigel hopes to build on the excellent work of former High Sheriffs. He sees sustaining the morale of those working in the voluntary and statutory sector as his top priority, with particular emphasis on those associated with the maintenance of law and order.