The Church of England logoFaithWorshipLife eventsAbout the Church
Information Contact us
Media Centre Home
Media

Dame Betty Ridley RIP

3 August 2005

The Church of England mourns the loss of Dame Betty Ridley, who has died, aged 95.  Dame Betty is most closely identified with her role as Third Church Estates Commissioner 1972-81, but that was only the most visible part of her long and distinguished service to the Church. 

During her long association with 1 Millbank and Church House, Dame Betty earned a richly deserved reputation both for the sensitivity, understanding and meticulous care which she brought to her work and for her cheerfulness, wide experience and wise counsel.

Shaun Farrell, Secretary & Chief Executive of the Church of England Pensions Board, said today: “When I joined the staff of the Church Commissioners in 1969, Dame Betty was still plain Mrs Ridley – but already a unique National Church Institution long before that phrase had been coined.  She was a towering figure in the senior levels of the Church, and the range of her interests and influence is hard to grasp today.  And as junior officer on sub-committee visits, I swiftly learned that it was bitter lemon she expected in her gin, not tonic.”

In his General Synod tribute on her retirement in 1981, Oswald Clark, then Chairman of the House of Laity, said: “For 35 years she has been a member of our House, and . . . as her qualities were more and more appreciated, there began that incredible series of board, council and committee appointments which has continued to this day – ACCM, Central Board of Finance, British Council of Churches, Central Council for Women’s Church Work, Church Commissioners, Churches Main Committee, NIE, Standing Committee . . .  Her energy was and is unflagging, rivalling certainly that of the virtuous woman of scripture ‘who looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness’, though Betty herself would probably find more acceptable the comment of Charlotte Whitton: ‘Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be thought half as good.  Luckily’ she went on ‘this is not difficult’.”