Richard Phipps Hornby (20 June 1922 – 22 September 2007) was a British Conservative politician and businessman. He was Member of Parliament for Tonbridge for over 17½ years, from June 1956 to February 1974, holding a junior ministerial position for a year in the mid-1960s. He worked for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency before, during, and after his career in Parliament, and was Chairman of the Halifax Building Society from 1983 to 1990.
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Early and private life
Hornby was born in St Michael's on Wyre in Lancashire, the eldest son of Hugh Hornby. His father won a Military Cross as a military chaplain in France in 1916, and was Vicar of St Michael's on Wyre when Richard was born, later Rector of Bury and Suffragan Bishop of Hulme.
Hornby was a scholar at Winchester College. He played occasional matches in the Football League for Bury F.C. as a teenager. He studied history at Trinity College, Oxford, winning a Blue for football. His studies were interrupted by five years of service as an officer in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in the Second World War. He landed in France six weeks after D-Day, fighting across France, the Low Countries and into Germany. He was involved in liberating concentration camps.
After completing his studies after the war, he taught history at Eton College from 1948 to 1950. In 1951 he married the professional soprano Stella Hichens, who was the daughter of Lionel Hichens and the granddaughter of Sir Neville Lyttelton. They had three sons and one daughter. He spent a year as a marketing trainee with Unilever from 1951 to 1952, and then moved to the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency as a copywriter, before concentrating on a political career.