The Right Honourable Virginia Hilda Brunette Maxwell Bottomley (born March 12, 1948 née Garnett) is a British Conservative politician. She was a Member of Parliament from 1984 to 2005.

Bottomley studied at the London School of Economics. She was a researcher for Child Poverty Action Group and then became a social worker and a magistrate (Justice of the Peace).

Bottomley entered Parliament in 1984, as Member for Surrey South West, and got her first ministerial position in 1988, as junior Environment minister, and was appointed Minister of Health in 1989. In John Major's cabinet, she progressed upwards, becoming a member of the Privy Council and serving as Secretary of State for Health from 1992 to 1995, and then Secretary of State for National Heritage from 1995 to 1997. Since the 1997 general election, she has remained an opposition backbencher. She is considered to be a 'One Nation Conservative '. She stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and has become a headhunter for the charity and public sectors.

Bottomley has long been involved with many charitable and academic bodies. She is a Governor of the London School of Economics and the University of the Arts, London. She is also a Council Member of the Ditchley Foundation and President of Farnham Castle Centre for International Briefing. She is on the Advisory Council of the International Chamber of Commerce UK and the Judge School of Management, Cambridge. Virginia is a trustee and fellow of the Industry and Parliament Trust. She is National President of the Abbeyfield Society and a Vice-Patron of Carers and Cruse. She is a lay Canon of Guildford Cathedral, and a Freeman of the City of London.

Her husband Peter Bottomley is also an MP. Her brother, Christopher Garnett , is the chief executive of the GNER railway, and Peter Jay , the former British Ambassador to the United States, is a cousin.

A popular anecdote notes that "Virginia Bottomley" is an anagram of "I'm an evil Tory bigot".