Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley

Viscount Ridley in the robes of a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter

Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley KG, GCVO, TD (born 29 July 1925), is a British nobleman. He notably served as Lord Steward of the Household from 1989 to 2001.

Background, education and military service

Ridley is the son of Matthew White Ridley, 3rd Viscount Ridley, and Ursula Lutyens, daughter of Sir Edwin Lutyens. His younger brother Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, was a prominent Conservative Party politician who served as a government minister for nearly all of Margaret Thatcher's years as Prime Minister. He was educated at Eton before joining the Coldstream Guards and serving in Normandy and Germany in 1944-45. Later he joined the Territorial Army, reaching the rank of Brevet Colonel in the Northumberland Hussars: he became Honorary Colonel of that unit in 1979). In 1948 he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, before serving as an aide-de-camp to the Governor of Kenya.

Public life

Ridley succeeded his father in the viscountcy in 1964. He was Chairman of Northumberland County Council from 1967 to 1979. He chaired several companies and societies, before serving as Chancellor of the University of Newcastle from 1988 to 1999, as Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland from 1984 to 2000 and as Lord Steward of the Household from 1989 to 2001. He was succeeded by the Duke of Abercorn as Lord Steward in 2001.

Family

Lord Ridley married Lady Anne Katharine Gabrielle Lumley (1928–2006), daughter of Lawrence Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarbrough, in 1953. His heir is science writer Matt Ridley, who was also chairman of Northern Rock Bank, until the financial scandal which forced him to step down.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Ridley

Honorary titles
Preceded by The Duke of Northumberland	Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland 1984 – 2000	Succeeded by Sir John Buchanan-Riddell, Bt
	Lord Steward 1989 – 2001	Succeeded by The Duke of Abercorn
Academic offices
Preceded by The Duke of Northumberland	Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1988 – 1999	Succeeded by The Lord Patten of Barnes
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Matthew White Ridley	Viscount Ridley 1964 – present	Incumbent