Liz Truss Family History

Overview

Mary Elizabeth Truss, better known as Liz Truss, was born on July 29th, 1975 to John and Pruscilla Truss in Oxford.  She is the oldest of their four surviving children.

Liz, however, regards her hometown as Leeds, which was where she grew up.  She was educated at Roundhay Comprehensive, a former grammar school.  Her interest in politics was piqued early and she did her GCSE project on the fall of Thatcher entitled The End Of An Era.

A bright girl, she was admitted to Oxford University in 1993 to study PP&E.  While there, she was active in her support for the Liberal Democrats.

One of her tutors at Oxford remarked on her ability at the time to shift “unblinkingly” from one fiercely held belief to another.  That might explain how later she would move from being a Lib Dem and a Remainer to espousing seemingly opposite political beliefs.

Politics.  Liz joined the Conservative party in 1996, probably because she saw that it was her best career move.  She tried and failed to become a Conservative MP in 2001 and in 2005, but finally succeeded in 2010.

The next decade saw her in a number of ministerial posts, culminating with that of Foreign Secretary in 2021.  In September 2022 she won the Conservative leadership contest and became the British Prime Minister.

But she became the British Prime Minister of shortest duration when – after a disastrous mini-budget – she was forced to resign after just 49 days in office.

Despite her rejection by her party and by the public, she remained active in politics – promoting in ultra-conservative British and American forums her views of what needed to be done in her book Ten Years to Save The West.  However, Liz Truss lost her seat in the British Parliament in the July 2024 General Election.

The Truss Name

Truss is a fairly uncommon English surname.  There were only 180 recorded in the 1891 UK census and the numbers today are less than 500.  Its origin appears to have been in London and Essex.  Some have it derived from the old French trousse, meaning “bundle” or “package,” and perhaps being an occupational name for a porter.

A notable Truss, apart from Liz Truss, is the unrelated Lynne Truss, a writer known for her championing of correctness and aesthetics in the English language (as in her 2003 book Eats, Shoots and Leaves).

The Truss Line

Liz’s paternal Truss family originated in Falmouth, Cornwall where Thomas Truss was born in the year 1800.  He was by trade a shoemaker.

Berkshire.  It seemed that Thomas moved to Reading in Berkshire on or around the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Gardiner in 1824.

His son Charles, like Thomas, was also a shoemaker, but one specializing in boots and slippers.  Two of Thomas’s younger children, Betsy and Thomas, emigrated to Canada in their early twenties.

London and Watford.  Sydney Truss, born in Abingdon, Berkshire in 1879 when his parents were in their forties, was the youngest of Charles’s four sons.  While his brothers remained in Berkshire after the death of their father, Sydney became a commercial traveller in hardware and made the move to London in the early 1900’s.

There he met and married Emily Owers, an ironmonger’s daughter.  His son Clifford, born in Hendon in 1904, was only nine when Sydney died at the young age of thirty-four.  Emily lived on until 1972.

Not that much is known about Clifford, except that he married Joyce Birtwistle from Derbyshire in 1938 and made his home outside of London in Watford.  He had two sons – Richard who became a Church of England vicar and Liz’s father John.

Liz’s Father John.  John Kenneth Truss pursued an academic career.  He graduated from King’s College, Cambridge in 1968 and the following year married Priscilla Grasby, a fellow student there.  He earned his PhD at the University of Leeds in 1973 and became a lecturer and later a professor in mathematics.

John moved to Scotland to teach in 1979 before returning with his young family to academia at Leeds in 1985.  Both he and his wife Priscilla had strong left-wing views and would take their daughter Liz out on protest marches against the Thatcher Government at that time.

John found it difficult to accept Liz switching her support to the Conservatives in 1996 and would not campaign for her when she first stood for election five years later.  Was he dismayed by her transformation from the spirited girl in whom he had proudly instilled a strong social conscience into a standard bearer for the Tory Right?

The Grasby Line

Liz may have felt closer to her mother’s side of the family, the Grasbys.  They were originally from Yorkshire where Liz grew up.  And her mother Priscilla remained – unlike her father – a big supporter of hers as she rose through the ranks to become the Conservative Prime Minister in 2022.

Grasbys in Driffield, Yorkshire.  The roots of this Grasby family were deep in the rural landscape around Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire.  William Grasby, born in 1856, was a shepherd and an inn keeper at Langtoft during Victorian times.

His son George fought in the Great War with the East Yorkshire Regiment and lost his right leg at the Battle of Passchendale.  He briefly ended up in a German prisoner of war camp in 1918.

After the war he became a cobbler on Adelphi Street in Driffield despite the loss of his leg,  He also performed as a ventriloquist with his doll Jack in variety shows during the inter-war period.

It was this George who laid the foundation for a socially-upward family.

Liz’s Grandfather George.  George Grasby’s son, also named George, won a place to read classics at Queen’s College, Oxford.  During World War II he served with the Army in India in an intelligence role. After the war he became a teacher and later a head of classics at Bolton School for 25 years.

According to one former pupil, the pipe-smoking George Grasby was very much a post-Second World War socialist.  His daughter Priscilla, Liz’s mother, was one of his pupils and joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Liz Truss’s Family Line

• Charles Truss from Reading, Berkshire m. Emily Drewett (1839-1918) in Abingdon, Berkshire in 1859
• – Tom Truss (1861-1921) m. Elizabeth
• – Roland Truss (1862-1940) m. Margaret Copperthwaite
• – Alfred Truss (b. 1870)
• – Sydney Truss (1879-1913), commercial traveller

• Sydney Horace Truss from Berkshire m. Emily Owers from Paddington, London (1878-1972) in Hampstead, London in 1902
• – Clifford Truss (1904-1993)

• Clifford Owers Truss from Willesden, London m. Joyce Birtwistle from Derbyshire (1906-1959) in Belper, Derbyshire in 1938
• – Charles Richard Truss (b. 1942 in Watford), vicar
• – John Kenneth Truss (b. 1947 in Watford), professor

• Priscilla Grasby m. John Kenneth Truss (b. 1947) in Cambridge in 1969 (later settled in Leeds), divorced in 2003
• – Liz Truss (b. 1975)
• – Chris Truss (b.1978)
• – Patrick Truss (b.1980)
• – Francis Truss (b. 1982)

• Liz Truss m. Hugh O’Leary (b. 1974) in 2000
• – Florence O’Leary (b. 2006)
• – Liberty O’Leary (b. 2009)