Background
Ryder was born in Purbeck, Dorset, to Major Douglas Claud "Jack" Dudley Ryder, and his second wife, Vera Hamilton-Fletcher (née Cook). Jack Dudley Ryder was the great-grandson of the Honourable Granville Ryder (1799–1879), second son of Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby (1762–1847). Ryder was raised on the family estate, Rempstone Hall, in Corfe Castle.
He obtained his bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge (1960–1963), followed by a period of research into animal behaviour at Columbia University, and a diploma in clinical psychology from the University of Edinburgh. After Edinburgh, he worked as a clinical psychologist at the Warneford psychiatric hospital in Oxford. In 1980 he ran unsuccessfully for Parliament, and founded the Liberal Democrat's Animal Protection Group. He later went back to Cambridge, and was awarded his PhD in Social and Political Sciences in 1993. He held an Andrew W. Mellon visiting professorship at Tulane University in New Orleans in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Richard D. Ryder
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