Richard Lambert

Sir Richard Peter Lambert (born 23 September 1944) is a British journalist and business executive. He served as Director-General of the CBI, Chancellor of the University of Warwick and editor of the Financial Times newspaper. He currently chairs the board of the British Museum.

For other people named Richard Lambert, see Richard Lambert (disambiguation).

Sir Richard Lambert
Lambert at the FT Economists' Christmas Drinks Reception, 2015
Born	Richard Peter Lambert (1944-09-23) September 23, 1944 Buckinghamshire, England
Education	Fettes College
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Home town	Manchester, England
Title	Director-General of the CBI Chancellor of the University of Warwick Editor of the Financial Times Chairman of the Board of the British Museum
Spouse(s)	Harriet Murray-Browne ( m. 1973)
Children	2

Early life and education

Lambert was born in north Buckinghamshire and grew up in Manchester, first attending a local grammar school, before, at the age of 13, going to Fettes College, an independent school for boys in the city of Edinburgh in Scotland,[1] followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford,[2] where he studied History.

Business career

He joined the FT in 1966, editing the Lex Column in the paper in the 1970s. He became Financial Editor in 1979. From 1982 to 1983, he was the paper's New York correspondent. He was editor of the Financial Times from 1991 to 2001.[2] From 1997 to 1998, he returned in New York and remained editor, where he set up a US version of the paper to challenge the Wall Street Journal.

From June 2003 to March 2006, he was one of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, which sets the interest rate for the British pound.[2]

CBI

He became Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry on 1 July 2006.[2] He has written Government reports on BBC News 24[2] and chaired the Lambert Review on the relationship between higher education and business.[3]

He was replaced by John Cridland as head of the CBI on 1 February 2011.

Honours

He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of York in 2007.[4] He has other honorary degrees from City University, the University of Warwick, Brighton University and the University of Exeter.

He was appointed Chancellor of the University of Warwick on 19 March 2008. He formally took up the position on 1 August 2008,[5] and was officially installed on 10 December of the same year. After eight years as Chancellor, Lambert concluded his term at the end of the 2015-16 academic year and will be formally succeeded by Catherine Ashton.[6]

He was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours for service to business.[7]

Controversial ownership claims over the Parthenon Marbles

The position of the British Museum is that the Parthenon Marbles are owned by the Museum trustees, a group headed by Lambert and comprising mostly wealthy business executives.[8] The British Museum position is widely disputed both internationally and within Britain, where polls indicate that a majority of the population supports the return of the Marbles to Athens.[9][10] Lambert complained[11] of not having received sufficient advanced notice from novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who resigned from the board of trustees of the British Museum, citing its connection with large corporations and its failure to deal with its legacy of looting.[12] Following criticism of the British Museum's continued holding of the Marbles, and the damage caused both by British schoolboys[13] and by controversial whitening attempts.[14][15], Lambert has written to the Guardian asking that he be "trusted" to "take care" of the Parthenon Marbles.[16] The acquisition of the Marbles is widely considered to be illegal and immoral and remains subject to international dispute. The penalties for art theft in Greece include up to 20 years imprisonment.[17]

Personal life

He married Harriet Murray-Browne in 1973 and has two children.

References

1. Distinguished Pupils
2. Profile: Richard Lambert
3. The final report from the Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration Archived 10 September 2008 at the UK Government Web Archive, December 2003
4. University honours nine, University of York
5. Richard Lambert appointed as new Chancellor Archived 14 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, University of Warwick
6. "Baroness Ashton appointed Chancellor of the University of Warwick". Warwick Insite. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
7. "No. 59647". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2010. p. 1.
8. "The Parthenon Sculptures: The position of the Trustees of the British Museum". British Museum.
9. "Public and MPs would return the Elgin Marbles!". ipsos-mori.com. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013.
10. "Return Of The Parthenon Marbles". Ipsos MORI. Archived from the original on 9 April 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
11. "In damning online critique of British Museum's ethics, trustee Ahdaf Soueif announces resignation". The Art Newspaper. 16 July 2019.
12. "British Museum staff express support for trustee who resigned". The Guardian. 23 July 2019.
13. Hastings, Chris. Revealed: how rowdy schoolboys knocked a leg off one of the Elgin Marbles Archived 7 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily Telegraph, 15 May 2005. Retrieved 6 March 2010.
14. Oddy, Andrew, "The Conservation of Marble Sculptures in the British Museum before 1975", in Studies in Conservation, vol. 47, no. 3, (2002), p. 146
15. Jenkins, I., '"Sir, they are scrubbing the Elgin Marbles!" – some controversial cleanings of the Parthenon Sculptures', Minerva 10(6) (1999) 43–45.
17. Steven A. Bibas (1994). "The Case against Statutes of Limitations for Stolen Art". Yale Law Journal. 103 (8): 2437–2469. doi:10.2307/797052. JSTOR 797052.

External links

• CBI biography

Media offices
Preceded by Geoffrey Owen	Editor of The Financial Times 1991–2001	Succeeded by Andrew Gowers
Business positions
Preceded by Sir Digby Jones	Director of the Confederation of British Industry 2006–2011	Succeeded by John Cridland
Preceded by Niall FitzGerald	Chairman of the British Museum 2014–present	Incumbent
Academic offices
Preceded by Nick Scheele	Chancellor of the University of Warwick 2008–2016	Succeeded by Catherine Ashton