| Jennifer Tolhurst | |
| Birth Name: | Jennifer Mary Tolhurst |
| Office: | Lord Lieutenant of Essex |
| Term Start: | 5 August 2017 |
| Predecessor: | John Petre, 18th Baron Petre |
| Birth Place: | Northern Ireland |
| Office1: | High Sheriff of Essex |
| Monarch1: | Elizabeth II |
| Termstart1: | 2005 |
| Termend1: | 2006 |
| Children: | 3 |
Jennifer Mary Tolhurst (born 1951) is the current Lord-Lieutenant of Essex.[1] [2] She has been in the position since 5 August 2017.
Tolhurst started the Danbury and Little Baddow branch of the NSPCC and chaired the Prince's Youth Business Trust in Essex. She was a magistrate and vice chairman of the governors of New Hall School. She remains vice-president of the Essex Community Foundation, serves on Essex University Court, is an assessor for the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service and is vice-chairman of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee. She was High Sheriff of Essex in 2005.[3]
Tolhurst lives in Danbury with her husband, Philip. They have three grown-up children and seven grandchildren.
She succeeded Lord Petre, 18th Baron of the Petre family, whose ancestral family home is at Ingatestone Hall, who had been the lord-lieutenant of Essex for the previous fifteen years but stood down after turning 75 – the customary age of retirement for the Sovereign's representatives.