Group Captain Thomas Loel Evelyn Bulkeley Guinness, OBE (9 June 1906 – 31 December 1988) was a British Conservative politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bath (1931–1945), business magnate and philanthropist. Guinness also financed the purchase of the Calypso, leasing her for one symbolic franc a year to famous oceanic explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his movie The Silent World (1956).
Born in Manhattan and raised in the United States and England, Loel Guinness was the only son of Benjamin Seymour Guinness (1868–1947), an Irish lawyer from whom he inherited a fortune, and his first wife, Bridget Henrietta Frances Williams-Bulkeley (d. 1931). His father remarried with an Italian Duchess ( Maria Nunziante, suo jure Duchess) and was made (22 May 1946) a Prince (life title) by the King of Italy. He descended from Samuel Guinness, a Dublin goldsmith (1727–1795) and younger brother of the Guinness brewery's founder Arthur Guinness.
Loel Guinness also had two sisters: Meraud Michelle Wemyss Guinness (1904–1993), who married Alvaro Guevara (1894–1951) in 1929, and Tanis Eva Bulkeley Guinness (1908–1993), who married three times. Her first husband (m.1931–1937) was The Hon. William Drogo Sturges Montagu, son of George Charles Montagu, 9th Earl of Sandwich; her second husband (m. 1937–1951) was Howard Dietz and her third husband (m.1951) was Lt. Commander Charles Edward Harold John Phillips, who was the paternal uncle of Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn and Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and the first cousin of Janet Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven).
He was educated at Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He gained the rank of lieutenant in the service of the Irish Guards.
After taking flying lessons, Guinness joined the Royal Aero Club in 1928. The following year, he became one of the first private citizens in England to own an airplane and soon he was a member of the County of London's Auxiliary Air Force squadron. He later served as president of Air Work Ltd., an aircraft-parts supplier, and of British United Airways.
In 1931, on his third try, Guinness was elected to Parliament for Bath[6] and was named parliamentary private secretary to Sir Philip Sassoon, the Under Secretary for Air from 1931 to 1935. He held his seat until 1945, when he stood down.