Ritchie Calder

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = The Lord Ritchie-Calder

| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}}

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| office = Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal

| term_start = 5 July 1966

| term_end = 31 January 1982
Life peerage

| birth_name = Peter Ritchie Calder

| birth_date = {{birth date|1906|07|01|df=y}}

| birth_place = Forfar, Scotland

| death_date = {{death date and age|1982|01|31|1906|07|01|df=y}}

| death_place = Edinburgh, Scotland

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| spouse = {{marriage|Mabel McKail|1927}}

| children = 5 (including Nigel and Angus)

| relatives = Simon Calder (grandson)

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| education = Forfar Academy

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| occupation = {{hlist|Author|journalist|academic}}

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| awards = Kalinga Prize (1960)

}}

Peter Ritchie Ritchie-Calder, Baron Ritchie-Calder {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|sep=,|CBE}} ({{ne|Calder}}; 1 July 1906 – 31 January 1982), was a Scottish socialist writer, journalist and academic.

Early life

Peter Ritchie Calder was born on 1 July 1906 in Forfar, Scotland, the youngest of four children of David Lindsay Calder, a linen worker, and Georgina Ritchie, the daughter of a master mason. He was educated at Forfar Academy, leaving the school at the age of 16.{{Cite ODNB|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/30891|title=Calder, Peter Ritchie, Baron Ritchie-Calder|last=Williams|first=Trevor I.}}

Career

Calder first worked as a journalist in Dundee and Glasgow, where he became noted as a socialist and peace activist; as science editor of the News Chronicle, he wrote under the name of 'Ritchie Calder'.

After moving to London before World War II, he accepted an appointment as the director of plans and campaigns at the Political Warfare Executive branch of the Government, which was responsible for the allied war propaganda effort. He wrote propaganda posters and leaflets and speeches for allied leaders. He was a member of the 1941 Committee, a group of liberal politicians, writers and other people of influence in the United Kingdom. In 1941 he became popular with his book Carry on London, which described the effects of the German bombardment of London, Coventry and other cities in Great Britain.

After the war Calder returned to his former activities as a writer and specialised in internationalism, the peace movement and in the public understanding of science. He worked also with the United Nations and was president of the National Peace Council and of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He also worked for the News Chronicle newspaper as science editor.

Sir Lawrence Bragg's original announcement of the discovery of the structure of DNA was made at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 but went unreported by the UK press. He then gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953, which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life".

Calder was an ardent peace activist and humanist. In 1955, Calder recorded and released an album on Folkways Records entitled Science in Our Lives. In 1980 he was one of the signatories of "A Secular Humanist Declaration", a statement of belief in democratic secular humanism, issued by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism ("CODESH"), now the Council for Secular Humanism ("CSH"). He was also one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.{{cite web | url= https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto2/ | title=Humanist Manifesto II | publisher=American Humanist Association | accessdate=15 September 2012}} He was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the University of Edinburgh from 1961 to 1967,{{cite journal |title=Obituary: The Lord Ritchie-Calder |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts |date=March 1982 |volume=130 |issue=5308 |pages=227-228 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41373351 |access-date=30 October 2023}} and received the 1960 Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science.

While employed at the Foreign Office, Calder was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1945 New Year Honours.{{London Gazette |issue=36866 |date=1 January 1945 |page=26 |supp=y}}

He received a life peerage in the 1966 Birthday Honours.{{London Gazette |issue=44004 |date=11 June 1966 |page=6529 |supp=y}} With a change of his surname to Ritchie-Calder,{{Edinburgh Gazette |issue=18467 |date=21 June 1966 |page=496}} he was created Baron Ritchie-Calder, of Balmashanner in the Royal Burgh of Forfar on 5 July 1966.{{London Gazette |issue=44048 |date=8 July 1966 |page=7719}}

Personal life

Lord Ritchie-Calder and his wife Mabel Jane Forbes McKail had five children: science writer Nigel Calder (1931-2014); writer and historian Angus Calder (1942-2008); mathematician Allan Calder (1944-2023); educationist Isla Calder (1946-2000) and teacher Fiona Rudd (née Calder). He was also the grandfather of travel writer Simon Calder and the actor, writer and comedienne Gowan Calder.

Death

Calder died on 31 January 1982, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Sources

Trevor I. Williams, ‘Calder, Peter Ritchie, Baron Ritchie-Calder (1906–1982)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2012 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30891, accessed 17 July 2013]
[http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/cgi-bin/auth.pl?C000177 Author and Bookinfo.Com]

References

External links

[http://www.scottish-places.info/people/famousfirst2859.html Peter Ritchie Calder]. Scottish Gazetteer.
[http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1095/ Science in Our Lives Album Details] at Smithsonian Folkways

Category:1906 births

Category:1982 deaths

Category:Scottish anti-war activists

Ritchie-Calder

Category:Members of the Fabian Society

Category:Scottish Congregationalists

Category:Scottish political journalists

Category:Scottish scholars and academics

Category:Scottish science writers

Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh

Category:Scottish humanists

Category:People from Forfar