General David John Ramsbotham, Baron Ramsbotham (6 November 1934 – 13 December 2022) was a British Army officer who later served as HM Chief Inspector of Prisons. He was awarded a life peerage in 2005 and later sat on the crossbenches of the House of Lords.
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Early life and military career
Ramsbotham was born at a nursing home in Wells, Somerset, on 6 November 1934, the son of a Church of England clergyman, later Bishop of Wakefield, John Alexander Ramsbotham, son of Rev. Alexander Ramsbotham. He was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College. Ramsbotham entered the army through National Service, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 14 March 1953. He completed his National Service as an acting lieutenant, and retained a Territorial Army commission. He then took a history degree at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
On 21 February 1958 he was appointed to a regular army commission as a lieutenant, with seniority from 31 January 1957. He was promoted to captain on 31 January 1961. He served in Borneo during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation as an acting major in the period 24 December 1965 to 23 June 1966, and was Mentioned in Despatches. He was promoted to substantive major on 31 December 1967, and to lieutenant-colonel on 30 June 1971. From 11 June 1970 to 20 June 1973 he served as Military Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Michael Carver. This was a particularly busy time for the British Army; the Troubles in Northern Ireland were beginning, and the army's contribution, Operation Banner, was taking an increasingly large proportion of resources.