We attended the memorial service for Sir Henry Keswick this morning. Charles Moore admirably summed up his many virtues. He was my chairman of trustees at the National Portrait Gallery, taking over from Owen Chadwick on the same day that I started as Director. I always liked and respected him and he remained a good friend, although, as he once pointed out, we had absolutely nothing in common, apart from strong-minded wives.

I remembered that I gave a speech at a dinner when he stood down as chairman and I re-publish the speech in his memory, as well as his portrait by John Ward from the NPG’s collection:-

Two of Henry Keswick’s great virtues as a chairman of Trustees were that he liked speeches to be short and he liked to get home not too late at the end of the evening.

But now that he’s no longer chairman of Trustees, I can safely disobey him on both counts.

I first met Henry at my interview for the post of Director.   It was held, as some of you will remember, at the Headquarters of the Civil Service Commission at number 24, Whitehall.   Candidates were given a large badge with a number on it to make sure that one did not join, by mistake, the interviews for cleaners for the Ministry of Defence.

I had been tipped off that Henry was a big-shot financier and that he was likely to ask me penetrating questions about accounting practice.   He fixed me with a penetrating glare and asked me:

‘Could you tell me what’s your favourite picture ?’   For a moment, I thought it was a trick question, but, from that point onwards, I always thought he had the right set of priorities for the Gallery.

Shortly after my appointment was announced, I thought I should go and pay my respects to my future chairman of Trustees and (rather forwardly) invited myself to lunch at his headquarters in the City.   I remember two things about the visit.   The first was that, shortly after I had arrived, he lent back in his office chair and said,

‘You do know, don’t you, that I didn’t want you to be appointed’.   Well, as it happened, I did and I regard him as having been an unceasingly loyal and good friend, ally and supporter ever since, always keen, rightly to keep the Gallery and its Director, up to the mark, but in a way which was always supportive as well as tough.

The second thing I remember about that visit was that he mentioned that he was on the Board of the Telegraph Group and that it took an awfully long time to get to Canary Wharf.   I made the mistake of saying to him that I thought it was pretty quick by the Docklands Light Railway.   He looked at me and paused in a slightly glacial way and said,

‘You mean to say that you think that I might travel by the Underground Railway ?’

Well, we’ve had a good seven and a half years together.   Visitor numbers have more than doubled from half a million to well over a million (in fact, we’re close to the million mark this year already).   We’ve opened the Ondaatje Wing, with its beautiful new Tudor Gallery, paid for by Drue Heinz and Lord Wolfson.   On Saturday, we hear if we’ve won the Stirling Prize for the best building of the year 2000.   We’ve already won the Royal Fine Arts Commission Award for the best gallery.   We’ve even got an audit and compliance committee.

But what I will remember Henry for most of all is not just the achievements of the last seven and a half years, the trips to his and Tessa’s house at Oare, but more his sense of decency, the feeling that he always had the right instincts and a healthy contempt for redundant bureaucracy.   I will always think of him whenever I receive another circular from the Department for Culture and him invariably saying,

‘You don’t seriously expect me to read all this awful rubbish, do you ?   I’m going to put it straight in the rubbish bin’.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will all miss Henry as chairman.   We have much to thank him for — his loyalty to the Gallery, friendship and his good sense.   I think it is safe to say we will never see his like again.   And I hope you will now all rise and drink a toast of appreciation to ‘Henry’.