Maurice Ruffer

Maurice Pierre Ruffer was the son of Baron Alphonse Charles Jacques Alexandre Ruffer (1819–1896, first Baron de Ruffer), who founded the bank A Ruffer & Sons in 1872, the family having been silk merchants in Leipzig and Lyon.^[1][2] His mother was Anne Caroline Prieger (1826-1890) from Bad Kreuznach in Germany. His younger brother Sir Marc Armand Ruffer was an experimental pathologist and bacteriologist. The British fund manager and philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer (born 1951) is a great-grandson of Maurice Ruffer.

In 1883, Maurice Ruffer married Coraly Sophie Henriette Straehelin (born 20 March 1862, died 31 Nov 1925).^[3] They had four children:

• Stengelin Ferdinand Robert Ruffer (1884–1955). Father of Major John Edward Maurice Ruffer (1912–2010), who in turn was the father of Jonathan Ruffer;
• Charles Ernest Ruffer (1885–1943);
• Alix Violet Coraly Ruffer (1888–1935);
• Roland Ruffer (1895–1942).

In 1897, Maurice Ruffer acquired the lease on Lyncombe, 1 Crescent Wood Road, Sydenham Hill, London, a banker, of 39 Lombard Street, after the previous owner Henry Gover (c. 1835–1895), a solicitor and educationist had died there in 1895.^[4] In 1923, the lease passed to Francis Ellis, a merchant of 26 & 27 Farringdon Street.^[4]

From 1911 to 1922 (at least), he was living at 33 Belgrave Square, where in 1911, he had ten servants.^[5][6] In 1955, the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain purchased the lease of the house as their headquarters.^[7]

Ruffer died on 20 February 1935.^[4]