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Ruth Runciman

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Dame Ruth Runciman DBE (née Hellman; born 9 January 1936) is a former Chair of the British Mental Health Act Commission.[1]

Early life

Hellman, as she then was, was educated at Roedean School, Johannesburg, and the Witwatersrand University, also in Johannesburg, where she gained a baccalaureate degree. She then matriculated at Girton College, Cambridge, in England[2]

Career

Runciman became active in public life after marriages and children. In 1981, she was one of the founders of the Prison Reform Trust and was responsible for setting up a full-time Citizens' Advice Bureau in Wormwood Scrubs, the first full-time independent advice agency in any prison. She also became a Trustee of the Pilgrim Trust and the National AIDS Trust (now known as NAT), and chaired it from 2000 to 2006. [3]

For more than three decades, Runciman worked with the Citizens Advice Bureau and made significant contributions to work on drug misuse.[4]

She was Chair of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust for more than ten years, retiring at the end of 2013.[5]

Personal life

Between 1959 and 1962 she was married to Denis Mack Smith, a Cambridge historian of the Italian "Risorgimento".[1]

In 1963, she married secondly the British sociologist Walter Garrison Runciman, becoming Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, a title she does not use. Runciman died on 10 December 2020. Their son David, who then inherited the peerage, is a professor of politics at the University of Cambridge.[6]

Honours

References

  1. ^ a b Runciman of Doxford, Viscountess; Ruth Runciman. A & C Black. 2001. p. 1809. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ^ "Person Page". thepeerage.com.
  3. ^ "Truestees' Report and Accounts" (PDF). The Pilgrim Trust.
  4. ^ "Drugs and the Law: 'REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO THE MISUSE OF DRUGS ACT 1971". The Police Foundation. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  5. ^ "New chair for NHS Foundation Trust who will overlook centres in Milton Keynes". MK Web. 11 January 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  6. ^ "David Runciman". Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), University of Cambridge. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  7. ^ "Queen's Birthday honours 1998". The Independent. 12 June 1998.
  8. ^ "Honorary Fellows 1992-2009 Fellows". The University of Central Lancashire.