Jonathan Ruffer

Jonathan Ruffer was born on 17 August 1951 in London, England, and lived from an early age in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, England.[1][2][3] He was educated at Marlborough College, a public school in Marlborough, Wiltshire.[1] He graduated from Sidney Sussex College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, in 1972.[1][4]

Ruffer started as a stockbroker, before becoming a barrister.[5] He is now a Bencher of the Middle Temple. He worked in corporate finance for Schroders, an accepting house bank.[4][6] He worked for Dunbar, a private bank,[7] 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.[7] 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][8] The firm was renamed Ruffer LLP in 2004 and is now based at 80 Victoria Street in London.[2][9] 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.[7] In 2014, it had 199 employees,[2] and additional offices in Edinburgh and Hong Kong.[10]

He is a research fellow at St John's College, Durham.[4] He has published articles in The Spectator.[11]

According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2020, Ruffer is worth an estimated £159 million pounds, an increase of £8 million from the previous year.[12]

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]

Ruffer collects Spanish old masters.[13] He also owns paintings by Thomas Gainsborough.[28]

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

Ruffer is married to Jane Sequeira, a doctor, and palliative care specialist.[4][29] They have a daughter.[4] 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]

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

• Auckland Castle
• Kynren at Eleven Arches
• Ruffer