Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937) is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and founding editor of The Oldie magazine. He left the latter job at the end of May 2014.

Early life and education

thumb|[[Shrewsbury School]]

Ingrams's parents, who had three other sons including the banker and opera impresario Leonard Ingrams, were Leonard St Clair Ingrams (1900–1953), an investment banker from a clergy family who worked as a government official in propaganda, economic warfare and the secret services during World War II, and Victoria, the daughter of Sir James Reid, private physician to Queen Victoria. Through his maternal grandmother and her ties to the Baring family, Ingrams is a direct descendant of the 19th-century prime minister Charles Grey.

Ingrams was educated at the independent preparatory school West Downs in Winchester, Hampshire, followed by Shrewsbury School, where he met Willie Rushton and edited the school magazine. Before attending Oxford, he did his National Service in the army ranks after failing his interview for officer training, something which was unusual for someone from his background at the time. At University College, Oxford, where he read Classics, he shared tutorials with Robin Butler, later cabinet secretary and sometimes referred to as a "pillar of the Establishment". Ingrams also met Paul Foot, another former Shrewsbury pupil, not yet the left-wing radical he became, who became a lifelong friend and whose biography Ingrams wrote after Foot's death.

Career

Along with several other Old Salopians, including Willie Rushton, Ingrams founded Private Eye in 1962, taking over the editorship from Christopher Booker in 1963. It was a classic case, he claimed on Desert Island Discs in 2008, of the "old boy network". Private Eye was part of the satire boom of the early 1960s, which included the television show That Was The Week That Was, for which Ingrams wrote, and The Establishment nightclub, run by Peter Cook. When Private Eye ran into financial problems Cook was able to gain a majority shareholding on the proceeds of his brief but financially successful venture.

Ingrams vacated the editor's chair at the Eye in 1986, when Ian Hislop took over. In 1992 Ingrams created and became editor of The Oldie, a now monthly humorous lifestyle and issues magazine mainly aimed at the older generation. As of 2005, he was still chairman of Private Eye, working there every Monday, spending four days a week in London.

He was television critic for The Spectator from 1976 to 1984, though he rarely showed much enthusiasm for the medium. He was a regular on the radio panel quiz The News Quiz for its first twenty years and contributed a column to The Observer for eighteen years.

After a series of clashes with James Pembroke, owner and publisher of The Oldie, Ingrams left the magazine at the end of May 2014 having resigned as editor. they had three children: a son, Fred, who is an artist; a second son, Arthur, who was disabled and died in childhood; and a daughter, Margaret ("Jubby") a mother of three who died in 2004, aged 39, of a heroin overdose in Brighton.

Ingrams played the organ for many years in his local Anglican church in Aldworth, Berkshire, each Sunday. The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust was formed under the patronage of Ingrams and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. In 2011 he announced he had converted to Roman Catholicism. Before they married in 2011, Ingrams had a "long-term partner, Debbie Bosley, a waitress-turned novelist 27 years his junior".

His sister-in-law (wife of his late brother Rupert, a publisher) was Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth; his nephew Caspar is the present baron.

A biography, Richard Ingrams: Lord of the Gnomes () by Harry Thompson, was published in 1994. In 2020, his life was encapsulated in a satirical mock-autobiography, "Richard Ingrams Writes his Memoirs", published in The Fence.

thumb|alt=A truthful but satirical poem purporting to be Ingrams' autobiography|Richard Ingrams Writes His Memoirs

Books by Ingrams

As author

  • Mrs Wilson's Diary (with John Wells), 1965
  • Mrs Wilson's Second Diary (with John Wells), 1966
  • Mrs Wilson's Diaries (with John Wells), 1967
  • The Tale of Driver Grope (with Ralph Steadman), 1969
  • The Bible for Motorists: By Old Jowett (with Barry Fantoni), 1970
  • Harris in Wonderland: By Philip Reid (pseudonym of Ingrams and Andrew Osmond), 1973
  • God's Apology: A Chronicle of Three Friends, 1977
  • Goldenballs, 1979
  • Dear Bill: The Collected Letters of Denis Thatcher (with John Wells), 1980
  • Romney Marsh and the Royal Military Canal (with Fay Godwin), 1980
  • The Other Half: Further Letters of Denis Thatcher (with John Wells), 1981
  • One for the Road (with John Wells), 1982, ()
  • Piper's Places: John Piper in England & Wales (with John Piper), 1983, ()
  • My Round! (with John Wells), 1983, ()
  • Bottoms Up! (with John Wells), 1984, ()
  • Down the Hatch! (with John Wells), 1985, ()
  • John Stewart Collis: A Memoir, 1986, ()
  • Just the One (with John Wells), 1986, ()
  • The Best of "Dear Bill" (with John Wells), 1986, ()
  • Mud in Your Eye! (with John Wells), 1987, ()
  • You Might as Well be Dead, 1988, ()
  • Still Going Strong (with John Wells), 1988, ()
  • The Ridgeway: Europe's Oldest Road, 1988, ()
  • Number 10 (with John Wells]), 1989, ()
  • On and On (with John Wells), 1990, ()
  • Muggeridge: The Biography, 1995, ()
  • My Friend Footy: A Memoir of Paul Foot, 2005, ()
  • The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett, 2005, ()
  • Quips and Quotes: A Journalist's Commonplace Book, 2011, ()
  • Ludo and the Power of the Book: Ludovic Kennedy's Campaigns for Justice, 2017, ()
  • The Sins of G. K. Chesterton, 2021, ()

As compiler and editor

  • What the Papers Never Meant to Say: "Private Eye's" Second Book of Boobs, 1968
  • The Life and Times of Private Eye 1961–1971, 1971
  • Beachcomber: The Works of J. B. Morton, 1974
  • Cobbett's Country Book: An Anthology of William Cobbett's Writings on Country Matters, 1974
  • "Private Eye's" Book of Pseuds: A Mood Statement, 1975
  • "Private Eye's" Second Book of Pseuds, 1977
  • The Penguin Book of Private Eye Cartoons, 1983
  • Dr Johnson by Mrs Thrale: The "Anecdotes" of Mrs Piozzi in Their Original Form, 1984
  • England: An Anthology, 1989
  • The Bumper Beachcomber, 1991
  • The Oldie Book of Cartoons, 1996
  • More Cartoons, 1996
  • I Once Met: Fifty Encounters with the Famous, 1996
  • Jesus: Authors Take Sides: An Anthology, 1999
  • The Oldie Book of Cartoons, 1992–2009, 2009
  • The Oldie Book of Cartoons: A New Selection, 2013

References

  • Richard Ingrams interview