Rose Paterson

Rose Emily Paterson was born on 13 August 1956 in Northumberland.[1] She was the daughter of Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley[2] and Lady Anne Lumley (the daughter of Roger Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarbrough). Her great-grandfather was Sir Edwin Lutyens, through his daughter Ursula. Her brother, Matt Ridley, was the 5th Viscount Ridley, and she had two other siblings.[1]

They lived near Seaton Burn at the family-owned Blagdon Estate. She was educated at Westfield School in Newcastle upon Tyne and West Heath School in Sevenoaks.[1] As a schoolgirl, she ran a book (acted as a bookmaker) on horse racing, and said "I made quite a killing".[2] After school she took a gap year, and then read history at New Hall, Cambridge and attended an art history course in Venice.[1]

She worked for Sotheby's auction house, provided advice and valuations on artworks.[2] Following her husband's election as an MP in 1997, she was her husband's Shropshire-based personal assistant and office manager.[2]

In 2014, she was appointed chairman of Aintree Racecourse, and stood down from working for her husband in 2015.[2] She had been a racecourse committee director since 2005.[3] In 2014, she became the Jockey Club Racecourses' first female chairman, succeeding Peter Greenall, 4th Baron Daresbury.[4]

She was appointed a member of the board of stewards at the Jockey Club, owners of Aintree, in 2019.[3][5]

In 1980, she married the former Conservative cabinet minister Owen Paterson.[6][3] They had two sons and a daughter.[2] They lived at Shellbrook Hall in Ellesmere, Shropshire,[7][8] a grade II listed building since May 1953,[9] and Hillsborough Castle when Owen was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.[1]

Paterson contracted COVID-19 in 2020.[1] She was found dead in woods near her home that June; West Mercia Police treated her death as "unexplained", and it was not thought that any third party was involved.[6] She was 63.[2]

Her death was later ruled to be suicide by the coroner.[10]