Sir Adam Nicholas Ridley (born 14 May 1942) is a British economist, civil servant, and banker.
After working at the
Foreign Office and the
Department of Economic Affairs, he was Director of the
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
The CRD has been descr ...
. With
Chris Patten he wrote the Conservative election manifesto of 1979 and after the election was a
Special Advisor to the
Chancellors of the Exchequer
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
until 1984. He later served as a director of
Hambros Bank
Hambros Bank was a British bank based in London. The Hambros bank was a specialist in Anglo-Scandinavian business with expertise in trade finance and investment banking, and was the sole banker to the Scandinavian kingdoms for many years. The Bank ...
, of
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
, and of
Equitas
Equitas is a group of companies that was formed in 1996 to assume by way of reinsurance the vast and crippling liabilities that had accumulated in the syndicates at Lloyd's of London on insurance policies written on the 1992 and all prior years of ...
insurance companies.
Early life and background
The son of Jasper Maurice Alexander Ridley (1913–1943), by his marriage to Helen Laura Cressida Bonham-Carter, a daughter of
Sir Maurice Bonham-Carter and
Violet Asquith (herself a daughter of the British prime minister
H. H. Asquith), Ridley lost his father during the Second World War. His grandfather,
Sir Jasper Nicholas Ridley (1887–1951), was the younger son of
Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley
Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley, (25 July 1842 – 28 November 1904), known as Sir Matthew White Ridley, 5th Baronet, from 1877 to 1900, was a British Conservative statesman. He notably served as Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900.
Bac ...
,
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
in
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
's government from 1895 to 1900, while his paternal grandmother was Nathalie von Benckendorff, a daughter of
Count Alexander Benckendorff,
[ Charles Mosley, ed., ''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage'', 106th edition, vol. 1 (Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage, 1999), p. 30][ L. G. Pine, ''The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages with Genealogies and Arms'' (London: Heraldry Today, 1972), pp. 16, 276] Russian Ambassador to the
Court of St James's between 1903 and 1917.
Ridley was educated at
Eton and
Balliol College, Oxford, where he took first class honours in
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 1965.
['RIDLEY, Sir Adam (Nicholas)', in '' Who's Who 2014'' (London: A. & C. Black, 2014)]
He is a first cousin of the actress
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. Known for her roles in blockbusters and independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received various awards and nominations, including a British Academy Film Award a ...
and a more distant cousin of the Conservative cabinet minister
Nicholas Ridley and the historian
Jane Ridley
Jane Ridley (born 15 May 1953) is an English historian, biographer, author and broadcaster, and Professor of Modern History at the University of Buckingham.
Ridley won the Duff Cooper Prize in 2002 for ''The Architect and his Wife'', a biograph ...
.
[
]
Career
After joining the Foreign Office in 1965, Ridley was quickly seconded to the recently established Department of Economic Affairs, where he remained until 1968. He was a Harkness Fellow
The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several coun ...
at the University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, for the academic year 1968–1969, then returned to the Civil Service. He was with HM Treasury
His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ...
from 1970 to 1971, then joined Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
new Central Policy Review Staff (or "Think Tank") and remained there until the change of government in 1974. He then served for five years as Economic Adviser to the Conservative Shadow Cabinets of Heath and Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
.[
In 1975, when Thatcher wrested the party leadership from Heath, Ridley was part of her inner circle, and in his book ''A View from the Wings'' Ronald Millar recalls working into the small hours with Ridley and Chris Patten on Thatcher's first speech as leader to a Conservative Party conference. In the summer of 1978, in the expectation of a general election later that year, a Conservative Party election manifesto was drafted by Ridley and Patten and edited by ]Angus Maude
Angus Edmund Upton Maude, Baron Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, (8 September 1912 – 9 November 1993) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950 to 1958 and from 1963 to 1983, he served as a cabinet min ...
. In 1979, Ridley became Director of the Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
The CRD has been descr ...
. Following the Conservative victory in the general election of 1979, he was briefly at 10, Downing Street, before returning to the Treasury as a Special Advisor to Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, (born 11 March 1932) is a British Conservative Party politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in the cabinet of Margaret ...
as Chancellors of the Exchequer
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
between 1979 and 1984.[ In his memoir ''Inside the Bank of England'', Christopher Dow notes that in 1979 only Ridley was brought into the Treasury as a political advisor, and that he was trusted even though he was not a monetarist.][ Christopher Dow, ''Inside the Bank of England: Memoirs of Christopher Dow, Chief Economist 1973–84'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)]
p. 110
/ref> Ridley played a leading part in forming the new government's policy favouring privatisation.
Ridley's final post in the world of government was as advisor to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...
for part of 1985.[ That year, he was ]knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
ed and made a career move into merchant banking
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commod ...
. He was a director of Hambros Bank
Hambros Bank was a British bank based in London. The Hambros bank was a specialist in Anglo-Scandinavian business with expertise in trade finance and investment banking, and was the sole banker to the Scandinavian kingdoms for many years. The Bank ...
and of Hambros PLC from 1985 to 1997, and of Sunday Newspaper Publishing PLC from 1988 to 1990, serving as chairman in 1990. He was also Chairman of the Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...
Names Advisory Committee for 1995–1996, then a member of the Council of Lloyds and of the Lloyds Regulatory Board from 1997 to 1999. After leaving Hambros, he was a non-executive director of Leopold Joseph Holdings from 1997 to 2004, of Morgan Stanley Bank International from 2006 to 2013 and of Hampden Agencies Ltd from 2007 to 2012, and then of several Equitas
Equitas is a group of companies that was formed in 1996 to assume by way of reinsurance the vast and crippling liabilities that had accumulated in the syndicates at Lloyd's of London on insurance policies written on the 1992 and all prior years of ...
insurance companies from 2009 to date.[
He served on the National Lottery Charities Board from 1994 to 2000, most of that time as its Deputy chairman, and since 2003 has been a member of the Council of the British School at Athens.][
]
Private life
In 1970 Ridley married firstly his second cousin Lady Katharine Asquith, one of the daughters of Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith
Julian Edward George Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (22 April 1916 – 16 January 2011) was a British colonial administrator and hereditary peer.
Background and education
Asquith was the only son of Katharine (née Horner) and Raymon ...
,[ but this ended in divorce in 1976. In 1981, he married secondly Margaret Anne Passmore, and they have three sons. He is a member of the ]Garrick Club
The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in the heart of London founded in 1831. It is one of the oldest members' clubs in the world and, since its inception, has catered to members such as Charles Kean, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Ar ...
and the Political Economy Club.[
Christopher Dow recalled in his memoirs that when invited to lunch at the Bank of England Ridley habitually arrived by motorcycle.][
]
Publications
*''Europe, the Challenge of Diversity'' (Routledge & Kegan Paul, Chatham House Papers series, 1985), with Helen Wallace
Dame Helen Sarah Wallace, Lady Wallace of Saltaire, DBE, CMG, FBA, MAE, FAcSS (born 25 June 1946 in Whalley Range, Manchester), née Rushworth, is a British expert in European studies and, by marriage to William Wallace, Baron Wallace of ...
jstor reference page
accessed 21 March 2014
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridley, Adam Nicholas
1942 births
Living people
British people of Russian descent
People educated at Eton College
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
University of California, Berkeley fellows
Knights Bachelor
British bankers
British civil servants
Adam Ridley
Asquith family