Lionel Ford

Ford was born in Paddington, London, the son of William Augustus Ford and Katherine Mary Justice.[2] His father had played cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club ("MCC") and his brother Francis Ford played cricket for England. Ford's grandfather was George Samuel Ford, a well known bill discounter.

Ford was educated at Repton School and King's College, Cambridge where he won the Chancellor's Classical Medal[3][4] and was a member of the Pitt Club.[5] He became a school master at Eton, and was ordained a curate in the Anglican church in 1893.[6] In 1898 and 1899 he played cricket for minor county Buckinghamshire.[7]

Ford became headmaster of Repton School in 1901 and in 1910 moved to Harrow, where he was headmaster until 1925.[8] in 1925 he became the Dean at York, a post he was to hold until his death on Easter Sunday seven years later.[9] His memorial is in the restored Zouche Chapel.[10]

Ford married in 1904 Mary Catherine Talbot, daughter of the education campaigner Lavinia Talbot and Edward Stuart Talbot, who was successively Bishop of Rochester, Southwark and Winchester.[11] They had:

• Neville Ford (1906–2000), a notable cricketer for Derbyshire, who married Patricia Smiles, daughter of Ulster Unionist MP W. D. Smiles and Margaret Heighway, and great-niece of Mrs Beeton, in 1941[12]
• Edward Ford (1910-2006), a courtier in the Royal Household of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, who married the widow Virginia Brand Polk, daughter of Robert Brand, 1st Baron Brand, in 1949.[13]

• Portrait of Lionel Ford