Charles Smith-Ryland
British politician

Sir Charles Mortimer Tollemache Smith-Ryland KCVO (24 May 1927 – 14 November 1989) was Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire from 1968 to 1989.
Career
The son of Captain Charles Ivor Phipson Smith-Ryland, he was educated at Eton College and married Jeryl Marcia Sarah Gurdon, daughter of Robert Brampton Gurdon and sister of the third Baron Cranworth, in 1952. He served in the Coldstream Guards from 1945 to 1948.
He was a member of Warwickshire County Council from 1949, being vice-chairman in 1963 and chairman from 1964 to 1967. Appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Warwickshire in 1954 and High Sheriff of Warwickshire from 1967–1968, he was Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire from 1968–1989. He was a landowner and chairman of the Royal Agricultural Society from 1976. He was also chairman of the Warwickshire and Coventry Police Authority. He lived at Sherbourne Park estate.
Hunting
Smith-Ryland was an avid hunter who defended fox hunting and field sports. He was chairman of the Warwickshire Hunt.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Charles Smith-Ryland” as british politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 21, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5082543. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1989, 1968 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Smith-Ryland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.