Jonathan Ruffer
Born
Jonathan Garnier Ruffer

(1951-08-17) 17 August 1951
EducationMarlborough College
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)City investor, art collector
Known forCo-founder of Ruffer Investment Company
SpouseJane Sequeira
Children1 daughter

Jonathan Ruffer DL (born 17 August 1951) is a British City investor, art collector and philanthropist.

Early life

Jonathan Ruffer was born on 17 August 1951 in London, England, to Major John Edward Maurice Ruffer (1912-2010) and Dorothy ("Dodo") Margaret Willan (1919-1998). Ruffer lived from an early age in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, England.[1][2][3] He was educated at Aysgarth School and Marlborough College, a public school in Marlborough, Wiltshire.[4][1] He graduated from Sidney Sussex College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, in 1972.[1][5]

Career

Ruffer started as a stockbroker, before becoming a barrister.[6] He is now a Bencher of the Middle Temple. He worked in corporate finance for Schroders, an accepting house bank.[5][7] He worked for Dunbar, a private bank,[8] from 1980 to 1985.[1] He was also on the board of directors of one of its subsidiaries, Dunbar Fund Management, from 1981 to 1985.[8] He was then on the board of CFS (renamed Rathbone plc) from 1985 to 1994.[1] He was on the board of Odey Asset Management, founded by Crispin Odey, from 1992 to 2005; Fuel Tech from 1994 to 1998; and Electric & General Investment Trust from 2001 to 2011.[1]

In 1994, he co-founded Ruffer Investment Management Limited, an investment management firm with Robert Shirley, 14th Earl Ferrers (then Viscount Tamworth) and Jane Tufnell.[2][9] The firm was renamed Ruffer LLP in 2004 and is now based at 80 Victoria Street in London.[2][10] Ruffer was its chief executive officer from 1994 to 2012[1] and has been its chairman since 2011.[1] The firm managed £15.4 billion on behalf of its clients in 2012–2013.[8] In 2014, it had 199 employees,[2] and additional offices in Edinburgh and Hong Kong.[11]

He is a research fellow at St John's College, Durham.[5] He has published articles in The Spectator.[12]

Philanthropy

Ruffer credits William Rathbone VI as a source of inspiration for his philanthropy.[13] He believes nobody needs more than £20 million.[13] However, he is critical of William Temple's Christian socialism.[13]

He served as the chairman of the Good Shepherd Mission in Bethnal Green from 1998 to 2008.[1] He has also supported the Church Urban Fund.[14]

Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

He expressed an interest in reviving County Durham through philanthropy in 2012.[3] That same year, he donated £1 million to the Durham Foundation.[15] A year later, in 2013, he donated £15 million to preserve Auckland Castle, the historical palace of the Bishop of Durham, through the Auckland Castle Trust,[13][16] of which he is the chair.[17][18] This included the preservation of 12 paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán, present in the palace since 1756.[13][18][19] In 2013, he donated £18 million to restore the Bishop's Palace and create a museum on the history of Christianity and faith in Britain, which had been expected to open in 2018.[13][16]

The restoration project was completed in 2019 and the Castle was scheduled to re-open to visitors in November;[20][21] three new restaurants for visitors were added, with one in operation by early November 2019.[22][23] Nonetheless, the Scotland Wing still houses the offices of the Bishop of Durham.[24] In 2019, he worked with Sotheby's James Macdonald (an expert on the Spanish school) to assemble a collection displayed at the Spanish Gallery.[25]

In 2014, Ruffer donated the endowment to create Kynren, a night show telling the history of England, in nearby Bishop Auckland to aid in wider regeneration.[26]

He has endowed the Jonathan Ruffer curatorial grants at The Art Fund, which give £75,000 to curators every year.[27]

Art collection

Ruffer collects Spanish old masters, which can be viewed in the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland which opened in 2021. The Gallery contains works by El Greco, Murillo, and Juan Bautista Maíno, among others.[13] He also owns paintings by Thomas Gainsborough.[28]

Personal life

Isaac Henrique Sequeira, by Thomas Gainsborough.
Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Ruffer is married to Jane Sequeira, a doctor, and palliative care specialist.[5][29] They have a daughter.[5] While he is a great-grandson of Maurice Ruffer (1857-1935), a French-born British banker, she is a descendant of Isaac Henrique Sequeira (1738-1816), a Portuguese Jewish doctor, who was painted by Thomas Gainsborough, one of his patients, and that oil painting now hangs in Madrid's Museo del Prado.[30][31]

An Anglican,[16] he has been described by the Financial Times as "a committed evangelical Christian"[13] and The Yorkshire Post as "a devout Christian."[2] He is a member of the Athenaeum Club and the Beefsteak Club.[1]

As of 2014, he had an estimated wealth of £380 million.[13] As of 2020, Ruffer was worth £159 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List.[32]

Ruffer gave an estimated £160 million to the development of Bishop Auckland Town in 2020. In total he has given one third of his wealth to the development of the Town.

Ruffer purchased Auckland Castle to save the collection of paintings by Zuburan, that were going to be sold.

Ruffer has since opened: the Mining Art Gallery (to showcase local miners' work), the Northern Museum of Archaeological Importance, the Spanish Gallery, the Auckland Tower, the Auckland Project, the Auckland Castle, Kynren, the Deer Park, Eleven Arches, and most recently Weardale Railway which will provide a direct link from Killhope Lead Mining Museum to Bishop Auckland.

Bibliography

  • The Big Shots (1977).
  • Babel, the Breaking of the Banks (2009)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jonathan Garnier Ruffer Archived 26 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Debrett's
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Ruffer LLP pays member of firm £18m, Yorkshire Post, 28 December 2014
  3. 1 2 Millionaire Jonathan Ruffer pledges to tackle deprivation, BBC, 25 January 2012
  4. ↑ Sedgwick, Phillip (21 April 2015). "Unlikely head has no regrets". Darlington and Stockton Times. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "St John's College : Jonathan Ruffer". Durham University. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  6. ↑ "Sunday Times Rich List". The Sunday Times. No. 42. 18 May 2014. ISSN 0956-1382.
  7. ↑ Jonathan Ruffer, Bloomberg Business
  8. 1 2 3 Philip Beresford, Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs 2014: No. 10 – Jonathan Ruffer, Ruffer Management: The investment entrepreneur is worth £380m. Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Management Today, 26 October 2014
  9. ↑ Julia Rampen, Ruffer co-founder steps down, Investment Week, 4 April 2014
  10. ↑ "Investment Funds - Investment Management - London, Edinburgh, Guernsey - UK - Ruffer". ruffer.co.uk. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  11. ↑ Katie Holliday, Jonathan Ruffer steps back from Ruffer Investments, Investment Week, 11 April 2012
  12. ↑ "Author: Jonathan Ruffer - The Spectator". The Spectator. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A N Wilson, Man on a mission: Jonathan Ruffer and the Auckland Castle Trust, Financial Times, 7 November 2014
  14. ↑ "Millionaire Jonathan Ruffer pledges to tackle deprivation". BBC. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  15. ↑ Jonathan Ruffer donates £1m donation to Durham foundation, The Journal, 7 September 2012
  16. 1 2 3 Charles Moore, The great Auckland Castle rescue, The Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2013
  17. ↑ "Auckland Castle". Auckland Castle. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  18. 1 2 Heritage Exchange 2014: Jonathan Ruffer Archived 15 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ↑ Francisco Zurbaran paintings saved by £15m donation, BBC, 31 March 2011
  20. ↑ "Auckland Castle in Durham to open to public after £12.4m restoration". The Guardian. 25 October 2019. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  21. ↑ Simpson, Harriet Agerholm, Emma; Palumbo, Daniele (3 March 2020). "The multimillionaire's plan to reinvent a town". BBC News. Retrieved 4 March 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ↑ "Auckland Castle to re-open after multimillion-pound restoration". BBC. 11 September 2019. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  23. ↑ "Eat & shop". The Auckland Project. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  24. ↑ "The Bishops of Durham Through Time". The Auckland Project. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  25. ↑ Gates, Anita (17 April 2018). "Private Sales Offer Art for a Few Eyes Only". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  26. ↑ Benefactor plans theme park for Bishop Auckland, ITV, 3 April 2014
  27. ↑ Fund, Art. "Jonathan Ruffer curatorial grants". artfund.org. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  28. ↑ Whetstone, David (20 June 2019). "One of the most beautiful settings imaginable for an exhibition like this". nechronicle. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  29. ↑ "Zurbarans' trustees revealed by owner". The Northern Echo. 18 April 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  30. ↑ Galán, Lola (24 April 2011). "Reportaje - El salvador de los 'zurbarán'". El País. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  31. ↑ "Isaac Henrique Sequeira - The Collection - Museo Nacional del Prado". museodelprado.es. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  32. ↑ Times, The Sunday. "Rich List 2020: profiles 703-799=, featuring Eric Clapton and Rory McIlroy". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
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