John Redcliffe-Maud, Baron Redcliffe-Maud

John Primatt Redcliffe-Maud, Baron Redcliffe-Maud, GCB, CBE (3 February 1906 – 20 November 1982) was a British civil servant and diplomat.

Born in Bristol, Maud was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford. At Oxford he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS). In 1928, he gained a one-year scholarship to Harvard University. From 1929 to 1939, he was a Fellow at University College, Oxford.

During World War II, he was Master of Birkbeck College and was also based at Reading Gaol, working for the Ministry of Food. He became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1942,^[1] and after the war, he worked at the Ministry of Education (1945–1952), rising to Permanent Secretary and then the Ministry of Fuel and Power until 1958. He became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1946,^[2] and was raised to a Knight Grand Cross in 1955.^[3] Inter alia, Maud appeared on the BBC programme The Brains Trust in 1958. He was High Commissioner in South Africa from 1959 to 1963, when he became Master of University College, Oxford, where he had been a Fellow before WWII.

In March 1964, Maud was appointed by Sir Keith Joseph, at the request of local authority associations, to head a departmental committee looking into the management of local government. The Maud Committee reported three years later.^[4] During the course of the inquiry, Maud was chosen to head a Royal Commission on the reform of all local government in England. He was awarded a life peerage, hyphenating his surname to become Baron Redcliffe-Maud, of the City and County of Bristol in 1967.^[5]

The Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England, popularly known as the Redcliffe-Maud Report, was published in 1969. It advocated the wholesale reform of local authority boundaries and the institution of large unitary councils based on the principle of mixing rural and urban areas. Accepted by the Labour government of Harold Wilson with minor changes, the opposition from rural areas convinced the Conservative opposition to oppose it and no further action was taken after the Conservatives won the 1970 general election.^[6]

He retired as Master of University College in 1976, to be succeeded by the leading lawyer Lord Goodman. His 1973 portrait by Ruskin Spear can be seen in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Another portrait hangs in the Hall at University College in Oxford.

Redcliffe-Maud was married to Jean Hamilton, who was educated at Somerville College, Oxford. His son, Humphrey Maud, was one of Benjamin Britten's favourite boys while he was at Eton. Sir John intervened to curtail Humphrey's frequent visits to stay with Britten on his own. The incident is described in John Bridcut's Britten's Children.

John Redcliffe-Maud is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. His archive is held by the London School of Economics Library.^[7]

Books

• Redcliffe-Maud, John, Experiences of an Optimist: The Memoirs of John Redcliffe-Maud. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981. (ISBN 0-241-10569-2)

References

External links

• Armstrong, Robert. "Maud, John Primatt Redcliffe, Baron Redcliffe-Maud (1906–1982)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31427. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31427. Retrieved 2009-05-30.  Subscription or UK public library membership required
• National Portrait Gallery information
• Catalogue of the Redcliffe-Maud papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.