18 Facts About Richard Hornby

Richard Phipps Hornby was a British Conservative politician and businessman.

Richard Hornby worked for the J Walter Thompson advertising agency before, during, and after his career in Parliament, and was Chairman of the Halifax Building Society from 1983 to 1990.

Richard Hornby's father won a Military Cross as a military chaplain in France in 1916, and was Vicar of St Michael's on Wyre when Richard was born, later Rector of Bury and Suffragan Bishop of Hulme.

Richard Hornby played occasional matches in the Football League for Bury FC as a teenager.

Richard Hornby studied history at Trinity College, Oxford, winning a Blue for football.

Richard Hornby's studies were interrupted by five years of service as an officer in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in the Second World War.

Richard Hornby landed in France six weeks after D-Day, fighting across France, the Low Countries and into Germany.

Richard Hornby spent a year as a marketing trainee with Unilever from 1951 to 1952, and then moved to the J Walter Thompson advertising agency as a copywriter, before concentrating on a political career.

Richard Hornby fought as Conservative candidate for Walthamstow West in the 1955 general election, losing to the incumbent, leader of the Labour Party and former prime minister Clement Attlee.

Richard Hornby contested, and lost, the by-election in March 1956 after Attlee moved to the House of Lords as Earl Attlee.

Richard Hornby was finally elected Member of Parliament at the by-election in June 1956 for the safe Conservative seat of Tonbridge, although, against a local Labour politician and with the unpopular government of Anthony Eden, the Conservative majority was cut to barely 1,600 votes.

Richard Hornby was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Duncan Sandys from 1959 to 1963, and continued to work for J Walter Thompson.

Richard Hornby took leave of absence from his advertising job from October 1963 until the October 1964 general election, to serve as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, with responsibility for Africa and Commonwealth education, his only position in the government.

Richard Hornby served on the General Advisory Council of the BBC from 1969 to 1974, and was a member of the Committee of Enquiry into Intrusions into Privacy from 1970 to 1972, and was a member of the British Council and the Institute of Race Relations.

Richard Hornby joined the London board of the Halifax Building Society in 1974, and joined its main board of directors in 1976.

Richard Hornby was its vice-chairman from 1981 to 1983, and its chairman from 1983 until he retired in 1990, during a period which saw rapid expansion, the ending of interest rates being set by the Building Societies Association, and the enactment of the Building Societies Act 1987.

Richard Hornby was a director of Cadbury Schweppes, McCorquodale and Business in the Community.

Richard Hornby was survived by his wife and three of their children.