Banker devoted to charities and horseracing

Respected names in banking are hard to come by in these credit-crunched times, but Richard Hambro, who died from cancer on April 25 at the age of 62, possessed one.

He was emblematic of a different type, or perhaps a different generation, of banker; described by friends and family as patrician, gentlemanly and in it for the long term.

Mr Hambro was best known for his work with cancer charities and as a descendent of the Hambro banking dynasty, the Scandinavian family that founded Hambros Bank back in 1839.

For many years the bank was one of the world’s leading specialist lenders to the shipping industry and played a part in the development of the “euromarkets”.

Ironically, Mr Hambro was a driving force behind the difficult decision to sell the family’s stake in the business in 1986, recognising that in the future a small bank would struggle to compete against the likes of Merrill Lynch and Nomura. Hambros Bank eventually became the anachronism Mr Hambro and his brothers had predicted. It was sold to Société Générale in 1998 for about £300m.

With a characteristic talent for timing he helped set up JO Hambro, a boutique investment company, in the same year with his father Jocelyn, after whom the bank was named, and his two brothers.

Armed with a family name that opened doors as quickly as the words Rothschild or Morgan, Mr Hambro became chairman of the asset management arm, where his connections and character brought in business. The unit grew and by the time it was sold to Credit Suisse in 2000, for a reported $124m, it had 650 clients and £1.5bn of assets under management.

Family provided the spur for his other passion – supporting cancer charities. His mother died of the disease when he was in his 20s.

Between 1983 and 2001 he was first treasurer and then chairman of the trustees of Macmillan Cancer Support. He helped to lift Macmillan’s annual income from £24m to £70m and to make it a household name.

“He never set out for publicity, that wasn’t his motivation at all. He just got on and did it without waiting for public approval,” said Jamie Hambro, his younger brother. “By today’s standards that is pretty unique.”

Jamie Dundas, chairman of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Richard Hambro’s untimely death from cancer has been a cruel blow to us all. Richard was an invaluable champion of Macmillan Cancer Support over a very long period.”

He was also involved with Colon Cancer Concern, the Joint British Cancer Charities and the London Clinic at various times.

Born in 1946 and educated at Eton and the University of Munich, Richard Hambro was the epitome of the traditional banker. He worked for the family business, eventually becoming a director of Hambros Bank and president of Hambro America.

He played golf, enjoyed shooting and was a regular at Wiltons restaurant, the Jermyn Street institution his family owns, where he often dined on lobster cocktail and veal Holstein.

Horseracing and breeding were his other pastimes, and he was chairman of Newmarket Racecourse at one time. That interest occasionally brought him grief.

He heartily regretted that he was out of town when one of his horses, Beechy Bank, won a race at Warwick in 2002 at odds of 200-1 – at the time reportedly the longest-priced winner of a British flat race since 1822.

“I didn’t have a penny on,” a dejected Mr Hambro told one journalist.

He married Charlotte, the daughter of Lord Soames, of the Churchill family, in 1973 but divorced in 1982 and subsequently re-married twice.

He leaves a widow, Mary, and Clementine, his only child, who was a bridesmaid to Lady Diana Spencer on her marriage to Prince Charles.