 He has been praised as a conviction politician whose anachronistic upper-class mannerisms and consciously traditionalist attitudes are often seen as entertaining; he has been dubbed the "Honourable Member for the 18th century".Critics view him as a reactionary figure, and some of his positions having made him the target of organised protests.Rees-Mogg was born in Hammersmith, London, on 24 May 1969, the younger son of William Rees-Mogg (1928–2012), a former editor of "The Times" newspaper, created a life peer in 1988, and Gillian Shakespeare Morris, his wife, a daughter of Thomas Richard Morris, a Conservative party local government politician and Mayor of St Pancras in London.