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Walter Garrison Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford (10 November 1934 – 10 December 2020), usually known informally as Garry Runciman, was a British historical sociologist and hereditary peer. A senior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, Runciman wrote several publications in his field. He also sat on the Securities and Investments Board and chaired the British Government's Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1991–1993).

Background

Runciman was the son of Leslie Runciman, 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, by his second wife, Katherine Schuyler Garrison. The British historian Sir Steven Runciman was his uncle.

Runciman was educated at Eton College, where he was an Oppidan Scholar, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He inherited the viscountcy on the death of his father in 1989.

Career

Runciman joined the faculty of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the 1950s as a historical sociologist and became a junior research fellow after submitting a thesis entitled Plato's Later Epistemology. In the 1960s he became primarily a sociologist. He became a senior research fellow in 1971, researching in the field of comparative and historical sociology. Runciman's principal research interest was the application of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory to cultural and social selection.

He held honorary degrees from King's College London and the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and York. He was also an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Bencher of Inner Temple. He was elected to the British Academy in 1975 and served as its president from 2001 to 2005. Runciman was also an honorary fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Official and parliamentary work

Runciman was invited by the Governor of the Bank of England to serve on the Securities and Investment Board (later to become the Financial Services Authority), from which he retired in 1998.

Runciman chaired the British Government's Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, established in 1991 and which continued Sir John May's inquiry into the convictions of the Maguire Seven and encompassed further miscarriages of justice. It reported to parliament in 1993. As a result, the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 established the Criminal Cases Review Commission as an executive Non-Departmental Public Body.

Runciman was a member of the House of Lords as a hereditary peer from the time he inherited the viscountcy on 1 September 1989. He spoke 26 times in the chamber until 11 November 1999 when he lost his right to sit there when the bulk of the hereditary peers were removed by the House of Lords Act 1999. Runciman sat for a subsequent by-election to the Lords in 2010 to fill the Crossbench hereditary seat vacancy following the death of Lord Colville of Culross; the House seat went to the Earl of Clancarty.

Publications

Runciman's first major publication was Relative Deprivation and Social Justice: a Study of Attitudes to Social Inequality in Twentieth-Century Britain. Since then, he has published A Critique of Max Weber's Philosophy of Social Science, A Treatise on Social Theory, and The Social Animal. In 2004, he edited and contributed to a British Academy occasional paper Hutton and Butler: Lifting the Lid on the Workings of Power, which deals with the events surrounding Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq and the way in which it was presented to the British public.

Marriage and children

Runciman married Ruth Hellman on 17 April 1963. She was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1998. They had three children:

• Hon. Lisa Runciman (born 18 August 1965)
• David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford (born 1 March 1967)
• Hon. Catherine Runciman (born 18 July 1969)

Runciman died on 10 December 2020. His heir, the 4th Viscount, is a political scientist and writer who teaches at Cambridge University as a Professor of Politics.

Arms

Coat of arms of Garry Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford

Crest A seahorse erect gules, holding in the fore fins a thistle as in the arms. Escutcheon Per fess or and azure a lymphad oars in action, the sail charged with a thistle leaved and slipped proper, flags flying to the dexter gules. Supporters On either side a seahorse or gorged with a chain pendent therefrom a grappling iron azure. Motto By sea

Notes

1. Under the House of Lords Act 1999.

References

1. ^ "Walter Garrison Runciman, CBE, FBA, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1934–2020)". Trinity College, Cambridge. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
2. "Runciman of Doxford". Who's Who. Vol. 2018 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. ^ Bio at Trinity College website, trin.cam.ac.uk; Accessed 12 July 2014.
4. British Academy Fellows Archive Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 30 September 2008.
5. London Review of books, 21 January 2016.
6. CCRC Website Archived 2 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine, ccrc.gov.uk; Accessed 12 July 2014.
7. "Mr Walter Runciman". Hansard. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
8. Routledge, 1966, reprinted by Gregg Revivals in 1993.
9. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
10. Cambridge University Press, Vol. 1 1983, Vol. 2 1989, Vol. 3, 1997.
11. HarperCollins, 1998.
12. the peerage.com, entry for Ruth Hellman
13. the peerage.com, entry for 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford
14. http://www.burkespeerage.com/; Runciman
15. Debrett's peerage and baronetage. Debrett's Peerage Ltd. 2002. p. 1392.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Runciman of Doxford
• Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 16 April 2014 (video)

• 1934 births
• 2020 deaths
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• British sociologists
• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
• English people of Scottish descent
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Fellows of the British Academy
• Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
• Runciman family
• People educated at Eton College
• Presidents of the British Academy
• Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
• Hereditary peers removed under the House of Lords Act 1999