Thomas Patrick John Anson was born on 25 April 1939. He was the only son of
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas William Arnold Anson, Viscount Anson (1913–1958), the eldest son and
heir apparent of Thomas Edward Anson, 4th Earl of Lichfield (1883–1960). His mother was born
Anne Bowes-Lyon (1917–1980), a niece of
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. His parents divorced in 1948, and his mother subsequently became Princess Anne of Denmark after her remarriage to
Prince Georg of Denmark in 1950. He had one sister,
Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Anson (1941–2020), who married
Sir Geoffrey Adam Shakerley, 6th Baronet. Lichfield was educated at two boarding
independent schools:
Wellesley House School in the coastal town of
Broadstairs in
Kent, and
Harrow School in
Harrow on the Hill in north-west London, followed by the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. His father died in 1958, leaving Patrick to succeed as 5th Earl of Lichfield when his grandfather died in 1960. Lichfield joined the
Grenadier Guards in 1959. On leaving the Army in 1962, he began to work as a photographer's assistant, and built up his own reputation, partly as a result of having access to the Royal Family. He was selected to take the official photographs of the wedding of the
Prince and
Princess of Wales in 1981, and subsequently became one of the UK's best-known photographers. From 1999 onwards he was a pioneer of digital photography as a professional standard. He was chosen by Queen
Elizabeth II and the
Duke of Edinburgh to take official pictures of her
Golden Jubilee in 2002. In 2003, he made a cameo appearance in the BBC medical drama series
Casualty for a story about raising money for
Children in Need. He also cameoed in the British sitcom
Keeping Up Appearances, appearing in the episode "Sea Fever" as a passenger on the
Queen Elizabeth 2. Lichfield resided in an apartment at the former family seat of
Shugborough Hall, near
Cannock Chase in
Staffordshire. In 1960 he had given the estate to the
National Trust in lieu of death duties arising on his grandfather's death. ==Marriage and children==