Family and Early Life
Ramsay was from an aristocratic family (he was a descendant of the Earls of Dalhousie). He attended Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, joining the Coldstream Guards in 1913. On the outbreak of World War I he served in France for two years. He later received a severe head injury before being invalided out and transferred to the War Office in London. Here he met and married on 30 April 1917 Lady Ninian Crichton-Stuart, née Hon. Ismay Preston, daughter of Viscount Gormanston and widow of Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart MP, who had been killed on active service in the war. His wife was already the mother of three surviving children. The couple went on to have four sons together, the eldest of whom died on active service in 1943.
As the war was coming to an end, Ramsay served at the British War Mission in Paris. He retired from the Army with the rank of Captain in 1920. He spent the 1920s as a company director, near Arbroath, Angus, and became active in the Conservative Party. In the 1931 general election, Ramsay was elected as MP for Peebles and Southern Midlothian. He was regarded as a likable and charming man (he was nicknamed 'Jock' among friends), who had a sincere and earnest approach and was an engaging and persuasive public speaker. However, Ramsay was not considered as a potential candidate for high office: the most senior appointment he obtained was as a Government member of the Potato Marketing Board.
Read more about this topic: Archibald Maule Ramsay
Famous quotes containing the words family, early and/or life:
“It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)