Francis Richards

Sir Francis Richards, KCMG, CVO, DL (born 1945), was Her Majesty's Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar from 2003 to 2006. He was previously Director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham from 1998 to April 2003 when he was replaced by Sir David Pepper.

Richards' father, Sir Brooks Richards, served in Gibraltar with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.

Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Richards was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets, serving with the United Nations Force in Cyprus.

After Richards' army career was cut short by injury, he entered the Diplomatic Service, serving in Moscow, Vienna, New Delhi and Namibia and holding a number of senior posts at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

At the end of his term in Gibraltar on 17 July 2006, Richards handed-over the keys to the fortress of Gibraltar, in the traditional 'Ceremony of the Keys', and departed on HMS Monmouth. He was succeeded as Governor in September 2006 by Lieutenant General Sir Robert Fulton, KBE, a former Commandant General of the Royal Marines.

An Honorary Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham, Richards was appointed Director of its Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy in April 2007.

Richards is married with two children.

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