Richard Lambert | |
---|---|
Born | Buckinghamshire, England | 23 September 1944
Education | Fettes College |
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Title | Former director-general of the CBI Former chancellor of the University of Warwick Former editor of the Financial Times Former chairman of the British Museum |
Spouse | Harriet Murray-Browne (m. 1973) |
Children | 2 |
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, editor of the Financial Times newspaper and chairman of the board of the British Museum.
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 Edinburgh, [1] followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, [2] where he studied history.
He joined the Financial Times 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 FT 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]
He became director-general of the Confederation of British Industry on 1 July 2006. [2] He wrote 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.
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 was succeeded by Catherine Ashton. [6]
He was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours for service to business. [7]
Lambert took up the controversial role of chair of the board of the British Museum in 2014, a role described in an article published in his former newspaper the Financial Times as "a ceremonial role that mostly involves raising money and refusing to give the Greeks back the Elgin Marbles". [8]
The position of the British Museum is that the Elgin Marbles are owned by the Museum trustees. [9] This position is disputed both by the Greek government and within Britain, where polls indicate that a majority of the British public support the repatriation of the Marbles to Athens. [10] [11] Lambert complained of not having received sufficient advanced notice from Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who resigned from the board of trustees, citing its connection with "corporate sponsorship" and its failure to repatriate artifacts such as the Elgin Marbles. [12] [13]
In response to the controversy surrounding the ownership of the Elgin Marbles, including instances of the marbles being accidentally damaged by schoolboys and by unsuccessful whitening attempts, Lambert wrote an article in The Guardian claiming that the marbles should remain in the Museum. [14] [15] [16] [17] This came about after the controversy intensified in Britain, in part thanks to British Labour Party politician Jeremy Corbyn, who suggested that he would approve of repatriating the Marbles to Greece. [18] Polls conducted by the British government indicate the majority of the British public support the repatriation of the Marbles to Greece. [19]
Lambert stood down from his role at the British Museum in October 2021 and was replaced by George Osborne. [20]
He married Harriet Murray-Browne in 1973 and has two children.
The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy, and Western civilization.
The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon and other structures from the Acropolis of Athens, removed from Ottoman Greece and shipped to Britain by agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, and now held in the British Museum in London. The majority of the sculptures were created in the 5th century BC under the direction of sculptor and architect Phidias.
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine,, often known as Lord Elgin, was a British nobleman, diplomat, and collector, known primarily for the controversial procurement of marble sculptures from the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis of Athens.
The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) is a group of British people who support the return of the Parthenon (Elgin) marbles to Athens, Greece. Members include Dame Janet Suzman (chairperson) and professors Anthony Snodgrass (honorary president), Paul Cartledge (Vice-Chair), and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill.
Robert Neil MacGregor is a British art historian and former museum director. He was editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, Director of the British Museum from 2003 to 2015, and founding director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin until 2018.
Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator.
Sir Robert Milton Worcester, is an American-born British pollster who is the founder of MORI and a member and contributor to many voluntary organisations. He is a well-known figure in British public opinion research and political circles and as a media commentator, especially about voting intentions in British and American elections.
Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners.
Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, FBA is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. From 1977 until 1992 he served as the Director of the British Museum, where he had previously worked, from 1955 to 1964, as an assistant keeper. In his role as director of the museum, he became embroiled in the controversy over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles with the Greek government, engaging with a "disastrous" televised debate with Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri.
Marbles Reunited: Friends of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles is a campaign group, governed by charter and funded by donations from members and supporters, which lobbies and raises awareness about the case for the return of the Parthenon (Elgin) marbles to Athens, Greece.
The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. The Acropolis Museum also lies over the ruins of part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens.
Greek–British relations are foreign relations between Greece and the United Kingdom. Greece and the United Kingdom maintain excellent and cordial relations and consider each other an ally with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, paying an official visit to London in 2021. Greece and the United Kingdom are both members of the United Nations, NATO and the Council of Europe.
The Palermo fragment, also known as Fagan slab from the name of the artist and British consul Robert Fagan who owned it, is a 2,500-year-old marble sculpture fragment of the foot and dress of the ancient Greek goddess Artemis.
Ian Dennis Jenkins was a Senior Curator at the British Museum who was an expert on ancient Greece and specialised in ancient Greek sculpture. Jenkins published a number of books and over a hundred articles. He led the British Museum's excavations at Cnidus and was involved in the debate over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles.
Matthew Taylor is an architect and campaigner for the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to Athens, Greece.
Archaeological looting is the illicit removal of artifacts from an archaeological site. Such looting is the major source of artifacts for the antiquities market. Looting typically involves either the illegal exportation of artifacts from their country of origin or the domestic distribution of looted goods. Looting has been linked to the economic and political stability of the possessing nation, with levels of looting increasing during times of crisis, but it has been known to occur during peacetimes and some looters take part in the practice as a means of income, referred to as subsistence looting. However, looting is also endemic in so-called "archaeological countries" like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and other areas of the Mediterranean Basin, as well as many areas of Africa, South East Asia and Central and South America, which have a rich heritage of archaeological sites, a large proportion of which are still unknown to formal archaeological science. Many countries have antique looting laws which state that the removal of the cultural object without formal permission is illegal and considered theft. Looting is not only illegal; the practice may also threaten access to cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is knowledge about a heritage that is passed down from generation to generation.
Hartwig Fischer is a German art historian and museum director. From April 2016 until his resignation in August 2023 following a theft scandal, he was the director of the British Museum, the first non-British head of the museum since 1866. From 2012 to 2016, he was director of the Dresden State Art Collections.
Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles is a 1987 book by Christopher Hitchens on the controversy surrounding the removal by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin of the Parthenon's sculptured friezes, and his subsequent sale of the Marbles to the British Museum. Hitchens examines the history of the artefacts and the question of whether they should be returned to Greece.
The Elgin Marbles is a 2006 book by American archaeologist Dorothy King about the 5th century BCE Classical Greek marble sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles.