Michael Ramsey

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Archbishop Ramsey (left) meets Pope Paul VI.

Arthur Michael Ramsey, Baron Ramsey of Canterbury (14 Nov 1904- 23 April 1988) was the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury appointed 31st May 1961 took office from June 1961 to 1974.

Michael Ramsey was born at Cambridge, educated at Repton School (one of his tutors at Repton was his predecessor the 99th Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Francis Fisher) and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society. Before Canterbury, he had previously been Bishop of Durham and Archbishop of York. He was a significant academic theologian. A member of the High Church group, he was active in the ecumenical movement.

Like most twentieth century Archbishops of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey presided over a period of numerical decline in the Church of England. He was nonetheless liked and respected both in the church and more widely, perhaps more so than either his immediate predecessors or successors; he had the reputation of being humane, principled, and discreet. After retiring as Archbishop in 1974 he was created a life peer, as Baron Ramsey of Canterbury, of Canterbury in Kent, enabling him to remain in the House of Lords where he had previously sat as one of the Lords Spiritual.

Ramsey House, an accomodation building of St Chad's College, University Of Durham is named after Micheal Ramsey.

Michael Ramsey's elder brother, Frank P. Ramsey born in 1903, was a noted mathematician and philosopher.