Background
The son of a stockbroker and nephew both of former Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Liberal Member of Parliament Sir Aurelian Ridsdale, he was educated at Tonbridge School and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
The son of a stockbroker and nephew both of former Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Liberal Member of Parliament Sir Aurelian Ridsdale, he was educated at Tonbridge School and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
After being commissiined as an officer into the Royal Norfolk Regiment, he studied Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies and during the war was a military intelligence officer specialising in Japan, rising to the rank of Major.
He took a particular interest in Japan. After the war, he ran a fruit farm in Sussex. She is reported to have been a model for the character Mission Moneypenny, secretary to James Bond.
She was her husband"s secretary and chairman of the Conservative MPs" Wives, and was awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1991.
In the 1951 general election, Ridsdale stood as the Conservative candidate in the London seat of Paddington North, but lost to the sitting Labour Member of Parliament William Field. In 1954 the National Liberal Member of Parliament for Harwich, Sir Stanley Holmes was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dovercourt, and Ridsdale was selected as "Conservative and Liberal" candidate to contest the consequent by-election.
He was elected on 11 February 1954, defeating Labour"s Mission Shirley Catlin (later Shirley Williams, fighting her first election), and he served for nearly forty years, being re-elected in nine subsequent general elections: 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, February 1974, October 1974, 1979, 1983 and 1987. Ridsdale did not stand again in 1992 general election, and was succeeded by the Conservative Iain Sproat.
After supporting Prime Minister Anthony Eden during the 1956 inavsion of Suez, Ridsdale served from 1957-1958 as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (Parliamentary Private Secretary) to John Profumo, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.
From 1958-1960 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. His ministerial career was brief, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air from 1962-1964. Returning to the backbenches, he continued to mark himself as traditional rightwing Conservative, opposing tax increases and supporting capital punishment.
In 1968, he supported Enoch Powell after Powell"s controversial anti-immigration "Rivers of Blood speech", calling him "the Winston Churchill of today".
Retaining his wartime interest in Japan, Ridsdale concentrated on improving Anglo-Japanese relations and developing trade links. He was Chairman of the British Japanese Parliamentary Group from 1964-1992 and the leader of successive Parliamentary delegations to Japan.
He received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1977 and was knighted in 1981.
40th United Kingdom Parliament. 41st United Kingdom Parliament. 42nd United Kingdom Parliament.
43rd United Kingdom Parliament.
44th United Kingdom Parliament. 45th United Kingdom Parliament.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament.
48th United Kingdom Parliament.
49th United Kingdom Parliament. 50th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was also Member of the North Atlantic Assembly from 1979-1992.