Ruth Runciman
Dame Ruth Runciman DBE is a former Chair of the UK Mental Health Act Commission.
She attended the Rodean School, Johannesburg and graduated from Witwatersrand University, also in Johannesburg, earning her baccalaureate degree. In the UK, she matriculated at Girton College, Cambridge University.
She served for more than three decades with the Citizens Advice Bureau and made significant contributions to work on drug misuse, for which she was awarded the OBE in 1991, which was later elevated to DBE.
Ruth Runciman was an early trustee of the National AIDS Trust, and served as its Chair from 2000 to 2006. She was a founder of the Prison Reform Trust in 1981. She was responsible for setting up a full-time Citizens' Advice Bureau in Wormwood Scrubs, the first full-time independent advice agency in any prison. She was also a Trustee of the Pilgrim Trust. The University of Central Lancashire conferred an Honorary Fellowship on Dame Ruth Runciman at an Awards Ceremony in 2000.
She was Chair of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust for more than ten years, retiring at the end of 2013.Personal life
Between 1959-62 she was married to Denis Mack Smith, a noted historian of the Italian "Risorgimento".
In 1963, she wed British sociologist Walter Garrison "Garry" Runciman, by which union she became the Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, a title she does not use. Their son, David, is a Professor of Politics and a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
