Sir Francis Richards | |
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Governor of Gibraltar | |
In office 27 May 2003 –17 July 2006 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Chief Minister | Peter Caruana |
Preceded by | Sir David Durie |
Succeeded by | Sir Robert Fulton |
Director of the Government Communications Headquarters | |
In office July 1998 –April 2003 | |
Preceded by | Sir Kevin Tebbit |
Succeeded by | Sir David Pepper |
Personal details | |
Born | 1945 (age 78–79) |
Parent |
|
Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge |
Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Commander of the Royal Victorian Order |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch/service | British Army |
Years of service | 1967–69 |
Rank | Lieutenant |
Unit | Royal Green Jackets |
Battles/wars | United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus |
Viceregal styles of Sir Francis Richards (2003–2006) | |
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Reference style | His Excellency |
Spoken style | Your Excellency |
Sir Francis Neville Richards KCMG CVO KStJ DL (born 1945) is a former British civil servant and diplomat who was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar from 2003 to 2006, and the director of the Government Communications Headquarters from 1998 to 2003.
Richards is the son of Sir Brooks Richards, who served in Gibraltar with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, and was later the Cabinet Office's Coordinator of Intelligence in the late 1970s. [1] Francis Richards was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge and then commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets, serving with the United Nations Force in Cyprus. [2]
After Richards' army career was cut short by injury, he entered the Diplomatic Service, serving in New Delhi and Namibia and holding a number of senior posts at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. [2] He was the first High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Namibia. [3]
He was director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham from 1998 to 2003. On his departure from GCHQ Richards said that the role was "... the best job I have ever had or ever expect to have... but you need to keep things fresh." [4] Richards would later criticise Malcolm Rifkind, the chair of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, saying that it was "not a very good idea" for any former senior minister of the ruling party to chair the committee. [5] Richards questioned whether Rifkind was therefore "well-placed to command confidence" when holding the agencies to account. [5] Richards was the chairman of the trustees of Bletchley Park from 2006 to 2011 and the chairman of the Imperial War Museum from December 2011. [6]
Richards served as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar from 2003 to 2006. [7]
At the end of his term in Gibraltar on 17 July 2006, Richards handed-over the keys to the fortress of Gibraltar, in the traditional 'Ceremony of the Keys', and departed on HMS Monmouth. He was succeeded as governor in September 2006 by Lieutenant General Sir Robert Fulton, a former Commandant General Royal Marines. [8]
An honorary senior fellow at the University of Birmingham, Richards was appointed director of its Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy in April 2007. [9] He currently sits on the board of governors at Rendcomb College. [10]
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.
The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) is an interagency deliberative body of the United Kingdom responsible for intelligence assessment, coordination, and oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service, Security Service, GCHQ, and Defence Intelligence. The JIC is supported by the Joint Intelligence Organisation under the Cabinet Office.
Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind is a British politician who served in the cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1986 to 1997, and most recently as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament from 2010 to 2015. He is also known for his advocacy of a pro-European stance within his party's policies.
Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies in that it is an integral part of a government department – the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – rather than a stand-alone organisation. The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded within the UK's defence budget. The organisation was formerly known as the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), but changed its name in 2009.
Sir David Edwin Pepper KCMG is a British civil servant who was the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British signals intelligence agency, from 2003 to 2008.
Rendcomb College is a public school for pupils aged 3–18, located in the village of Rendcomb five miles north of Cirencester in Gloucestershire, England.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Ted Squire, was a senior Royal Air Force officer. He was a fast jet pilot in the 1970s, a squadron commander during the Falklands War, and a senior air commander in the 1990s. Squire served as Chief of the Air Staff from 2000 to 2003. In retirement he was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Imperial War Museum and vice-chairman of the board of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Derek Schofield, is a British lawyer and the former Chief Justice of Gibraltar.
Sir David Bruce Omand is a British former senior civil servant who served as the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) from 1996 to 1997.
Sir Francis Brooks Richards,, LdH, CdG (1918–2002) was a director of operations for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War, and subsequently a British diplomat.
Admiral Sir Hugo Moresby White, was a senior officer of the Royal Navy and subsequently Governor of Gibraltar.
The Department of War Studies (DWS) is an academic department in the School of Security Studies within the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King's College London in London, United Kingdom. Along with other politics and international studies units at King's College London, it ranks amongst the top places for international relations in the world. For international relations in the UK, which is taught within the War Studies Department and the Department of European & International Studies, King's ranks second nationally. The department is devoted to the multi-disciplinary study of war and diplomacy within the broad remit of international relations. It remains one of the only academic departments in the world that can be described as such.
Lieutenant General Sir James Benjamin "Jim" Dutton, is a retired Royal Marines officer and former Governor of Gibraltar. He held various staff positions in his early career, before commanding 40 Commando. As a brigadier, he held two high-level staff posts—the first at the Ministry of Defence in London, as Director of NATO policy, and the second as a British liaison to The Pentagon shortly after the September 11 attacks, where he was involved in the planning for the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.
Professor Sir Michael Adrian Richards, CBE, MD, DSc (Hon), FRCP is a British oncologist. From 1999 to 2013 he was the National Cancer Director in the UK Government's Department of Health. He was Chief Inspector of Hospitals in the Care Quality Commission from May 2013 until July 2017, and was said by the Health Service Journal to be the third most powerful person in the English NHS in December 2013.
Lieutenant General Edward Grant Martin Davis, is a former senior Royal Marines officer. He was Commandant General Royal Marines from December 2011 to June 2014, and the Deputy Commander of NATO's Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey, from 2014 to 2015. He was Governor of Gibraltar from 2016 to 2020.
The North Front Cemetery is a cemetery located in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Also known as the Gibraltar Cemetery and the Garrison Cemetery, it is the only graveyard still in use in Gibraltar. It is also the only Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery in Gibraltar. The two CWGC monuments, the Gibraltar Memorial and the Gibraltar Cross of Sacrifice, are positioned nearby at the junction of Winston Churchill Avenue and Devil's Tower Road.
The Gibraltar Cross of Sacrifice is a war memorial in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located west of North Front Cemetery, at the junction of Winston Churchill Avenue and Devil's Tower Road. The Cross of Sacrifice was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield in 1917, and his monument is found in numerous Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries. The cross in Gibraltar was erected by the Royal Engineers for the commission, and unveiled on Armistice Day 1922. The British Pathé film recorded at the dedication ceremony that day represents the first motion picture made in Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Cross of Sacrifice served as the focus of Remembrance Sunday ceremonies in Gibraltar until 2009, at which time the location was changed to the Gibraltar War Memorial.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for collecting, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.