The Right Honourable The Lord Risby |
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Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Algeria | |
Assumed office November 2012 |
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Prime Minister |
David Cameron Theresa May |
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk |
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In office 2 May 1997 – 12 April 2010 |
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Preceded by | new constituency |
Succeeded by | Matthew Hancock |
Member of Parliament for Bury St Edmunds |
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In office 9 April 1992 – 1 May 1997 |
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Preceded by | Eldon Griffiths |
Succeeded by | David Ruffley |
Personal details | |
Born |
Cape Town, South Africa |
24 September 1946
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse(s) | Jane Henniker-Major |
Relations | Dick Spring |
Alma mater | University of Cape Town, Magdalene College, Cambridge |
Occupation | Politician |
Religion | Church of England |
Richard John Grenville Spring, Baron Risby (born 24 September 1946) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury St Edmunds from 1992 to 1997, and for West Suffolk from 1997 to 2010. He joined the House of Lords in 2010 and is currently the British Trade Envoy to Algeria.
Spring was born in 1946 in Cape Town, South Africa where he attended Rondebosch Boys' High School and Cape Town University. As a young child he lived in the picturesque suburb of Fresnaye. He subsequently studied at the University of Cambridge. He married Hon. Jane Henniker-Major, daughter of John Henniker-Major, 8th Baron Henniker, in 1979. They divorced in 1993, having had two children.
He is a descendant of the Suffolk merchant Thomas Spring, known as The Rich Clothier, and the builder of the St Peter and St Paul's Church in Lavenham. In 1992 he became the sixth member of the Spring family to represent a Suffolk constituency in the House of Commons, although the first for over 300 years. Spring is also a descendant of George Grenville, the Whig statesman who served as British Prime Minister in the eighteenth century.