He was an only child, his father, Army Lt. William Stamps Farish Jr., died in a training flight near Waxahachie, when he was 4 years old. His grandfather is William Stamps Farish II, the founder of Humble Oil and Refining Company, which struck oil in the Houston suburb Humble, part of what later to become the Exxon behemoth. William Stamps Farish II was appointed chairman of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller and went on to become president of Standard Oil from 1937 to 1942. His other grandfather was Robert E. Wood, who was the chief executive officer of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Wood was the leader in the Old Right movement from the 1920s through the 1960s as well as a key financial backer of the America First Committee. Farish grew up in Houston, where he attended St. John's School and graduated of the University of Virginia. Growing up his mother, Mary Farish, George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush Bush were very close friends. When Bush moved to Texas in 1948, it was the Farish connection that gave him his start in his career in the oil industry. Farish was taken in 'almost like family' – said Barbara Bush, while campaigning for George H. W. Bush's entrée into Washington Senatorial politics in 1964. During that unsuccessful campaign, Farish claimed to have been the first man to whom Bush confided his ultimate aim was to be president one day. The Bush Farish alliance dated back to 1929. In that year the Wall Street investment bank of W. Averell Harriman bought Dresser Industries, a supplier of oil-pipeline to Standard Oil and other oil companies. Prescott Bush, George H. W. Bush's father was a Harriman and Company executive who became a director and financier of Dresser and he served on the board of directors for twenty-two years.
Career
He began his career as a stockbroker at Underwood, Neuhaus and Company in Houston. He later served as President of Navarro Exploration Company. Farish was also a founding Director of Eurus, Inc., a bank holding company in New York as well as of Capital National Bank in Houston. Farish owns W.S. Farish & Co., a trust company based in Houston. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Kentucky. He has served on the board of directors of Vaalco Energy Inc.. In 1966, he entered the Board of directors of Zapata Petroleum Company founded in 1953 by George H. W. Bush. Farish said to have been the first man to whom Bush confided his ambition to be president one day. Farish was George H. W. Bush's very first personal aide when he went into politics, and 28 years later, before the Bushes left the White House, his son, William Stamps Farish IV, also served in that position. Farish was in the investment business. He owned the W.S. Farish & Co. investment firm, he managed the blind trust that Bush had to set up when he became vice-president in the Eighties. He had dealings in oil and gas exploration, mining, cattle ranching and local television stations.
Farish was nominated by President George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom on March 5, 2001, appointed on July 11, 2001, and served until he resigned in early summer 2004. The United Kingdom newspaper The Guardian commented on his low profile during the period leading up to the Iraq War. Christopher Meyer, who was British Ambassador to Washington during Farish's service, said that "as ambassador proved as agreeable as he was invisible."
Personal life
Farish wed Sarah Sharp, a stepdaughter of Bayard Sharp, a Du Pont heir, when Farish was 23 and Sarah as 19. Bayard Sharp's mother was Isabella Mathieu du Pont, sister of Irenee du Pont, who ran the du Pont fortune and was one of the leaders of a 1934 plot to overthrowPresident Franklin Roosevelt. Later Bayard Sharp raised thoroughbreds at the family's farm just across the Delaware border. They are the parents of one son, William Stamps Farish IV, and three daughters, Mary Farish Johnston, Laura Farish Chadwick, Hillary Farish Stratton. Laura Farish, one of his daughters, worked in the White House as one of Bush's scheduling aides.
