Prime Minister John Major Succeeded by Richard Ryder Preceded by David Mellor Name Tim Baron | Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Role British Politician Preceded by David Waddington Party Conservative Party | |
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Succeeded by David Mellor as (Secretary of State for National Heritage) Books Chief Whip: The Role, History and Black Arts of Parliamentary Whipping Education Eton College, Magdalen College, Oxford | ||
Ronald Timothy Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry, PC (born 28 May 1932) is a British Conservative Party politician.
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Early life
Tim Renton, who rarely uses his first name of Ronald, won scholarships to Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated with a first class degree in History.
Parliamentary career
After unsuccessfully contesting Sheffield Park in 1970, he was Conservative Member of Parliament for Mid-Sussex from 1974 to 1997.
He served as a Minister of State in both the Foreign Office and the Home Office, and served as Margaret Thatcher's Chief Whip (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury) between 1989 and 1990. After Thatcher's resignation in 1990 he served in John Major's government as Minister for the Arts between 1990 and 1992.
After standing down from the Commons at the 1997 General Election, he was announced to become a life peer in the 1997 Dissolution Honours; he was raised to the peerage on 9 June 1997 as Baron Renton of Mount Harry, of Offham in the County of East Sussex, and took his seat in the House of Lords. He retired from the House on 14 April 2016.
Styles of address
Family
In 1960 he married Alice Blanche Helen Fergusson, daughter of Sir James Fergusson, 8th Baronet of Kilkerran.
Their four surviving children are Alexander James Torre (a journalist and author), Christian Louise, Daniel Charles Antony and (Katherine) Chelsea, an artist. Polly (Penelope Sally Rosita), the couple's youngest daughter, a documentary film maker, died in a car accident in 2010.
He lives in Offham near Lewes in East Sussex and has a holiday home on the Hebridean island of Tiree.