Richmond Ritchie
Sir Richmond Thackeray Willoughby Ritchie was a British civil servant. He spent most of his working life at the India Office, reaching the post of Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India.Life
He was born in Calcutta, British India, the third son of the jurist William Ritchie and his wife, Augusta Charlotte Trimmer. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
In 1877 Ritchie entered the India Office through open competition, as a junior clerk. He acted as Private Secretary to a number Under-Secretaries of State, both Parliamentary and Permanent: from 1895 to 1902 he worked for Lord George Hamilton. He then was transferred to the post of Secretary in the Political and Secret Department.
Knighted in 1907, on the retirement of Sir Arthur Godley in 1910 Ritchie became the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, a position he continued to hold until his death.Family
In 1877 Ritchie married his second cousin, Anne Isabella Thackeray, the eldest daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, and an author in her own right.
