Tim Renton

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox officeholder Ronald Timothy Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry, Template:Postnominals (28 May 1932 – 25 August 2020) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Early life

Tim Renton, who rarely used his first name of Ronald, was born in London.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He attended Sunningdale School and then Eton, where he was a King's Scholar. He was an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford on the Roberts Gawen scholarship, and earned a first-class degree in History.<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref>

Parliamentary career

After unsuccessfully contesting Sheffield Park in 1970, he was Conservative Member of Parliament for Mid-Sussex from 1974 to 1997.

He served as a Minister of State in both the Foreign Office and the Home Office, and served as Margaret Thatcher's Chief Whip (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury) between 1989 and 1990. Following Thatcher's resignation in 1990 he served in John Major's government as Minister for the Arts between 1990 and 1992. During this time, he came up with the idea of a National Lottery.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This was later adopted as a government policy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He launched National Music Day (UK) with Mick Jagger which ran from 1992 until around 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Geoffrey Howe and to John Biffen, the Trade Secretary but resigned from that position in 1981 after he refused to support the government on a vote about a retrospective windfall tax on bank profits.

After standing down from the Commons at the 1997 General Election, he was created a life peer in the 1997 Dissolution Honours;<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> on 9 June 1997 as Baron Renton of Mount Harry, of Offham in the County of East Sussex,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and took his seat in the House of Lords. He retired from the House on 14 April 2016.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

In 1960, he married Alice Blanche Helen Fergusson, daughter of Sir James Fergusson, 8th Baronet of Kilkerran. The couple lived in Offham near Lewes in East Sussex and had a holiday home on the Hebridean island of Tiree.Template:Citation needed

Their four surviving children are Alex Renton, a journalist and author,<ref name="Times">Obituary: Polly RentonTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore, The Times, 10 June 2010</ref> Christian Louise, Daniel Charles Antony, an environmentalist, and (Katherine) Chelsea, who is an artist and author. The couple's youngest daughter, Polly Renton (Penelope Sally Rosita), a documentary film maker, died in a car accident in 2010.<ref name="Times"/>

Renton died from cancer at his home in Offham on 25 August 2020, aged 88.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bibliography

• The Dangerous Edge, Hutchinson, 1994, Template:ISBN
• Hostage to Fortune, Arrow, 1998, Template:ISBN
• Chief Whip, Politico's, 2005, Template:ISBN

References

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