Ralph Palmer, 12th Baron Lucas

Early life and education Lucas was privately educated at Twyford School and Eton College. He returned to study physics

Career Lucas started his career as a chartered accountant with Farrow, Bersey, Gain, Vincent & Co and successor firms, and worked at S. G. Warburg & Co. Ltd. from 1976 to 1988.

On the death of his mother in 1991, he succeeded her as 12th Baron Lucas and 8th Lord Dingwall. He was a Lord in Waiting (Government Whip in the House of Lords) during 1994–97, and the shadow Lords minister for International Development during 1997–98. He remains an active backbencher, taking a particular interest in education, liberty, electronic government, planning, finance and parking regulation.

As editor of The Good Schools Guide, Ralph Lucas has highlighted the continued improvement of state and Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools: the first edition of The Good Schools Guide in 1986 listed just ten state schools – 4 per cent of the total; by the 2016 edition, more than 300 state schools were reviewed, a quarter of the 1,200 schools reviewed that year. In the 2019 edition, nearly 400 of the 1,297 schools selected for review were state schools and 140 were SEN schools.

Lucas has commented on state schools as strong competitors for the most talented students, He has expressed his concerns over the dangers of charlatan tutors for very young children and rung warning bells over the ever rising fees of independent schools.

Asked by a journalist why historians make the best school leaders, he replied, 'The subject combines a fascination with humanity (pretty essential to running a school well), a disciplined way with words and stories, and a deep study of how to succeed as a dictator.'

Since inheriting his title and remaining through election by his peers, Ralph Lucas was active in the House of Lords. He served on committees that addressed digital skills, the regeneration of seaside towns, and digital technology & democracy.

He met his third wife, Antonia Rubenstein, when serving as a patron on the prison reform charity, Safe Ground, and was instrumental in establishing the Family Man and Fathers Inside family relationships project.

Ralph Lucas has been involved in encouraging a relationship between The Eden Project and Eastbourne. With Lady Lucas, he set up the Making Natural History project, using creative works to highlight environmental issues in and beyond Eastbourne.

Lucas was appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA) in 1986 and is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.

Personal life Lucas is the son of the Anne Palmer, 11th Baroness Lucas and 7th Lady Dingwall and Major the Hon Robert Jocelyn Palmer (fifth child and third son of the 3rd Earl of Selborne).

Florence Amabel Cowper, daughter of George Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper married Auberon Herbert and inherited the Barony of Lucas of Crudwell (from her grandfather, Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey), and the Lordship of Dingwall (from her uncle Francis Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper). They were the parents of four children, including Nan Ino Cooper, 10th Baroness Lucas (Ralph Lucas's maternal grandmother), and her elder daughter, Anne Rosemary, married Major the Hon Robert Jocelyn Palmer MC (son of Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne).

Lucas has been married three times:

Clarissa Marie Lockett on 22 July 1978. They were divorced in 1995 after having two children. Lucas married Amanda Atha in 1995, who died in 2000. In 2001, he married Antonia Kennedy Rubinstein, with whom he has one daughter.