Sir John Ashworth, Government Chief Scientist who taught Mrs Thatcher about climate change

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10-04-2025

Sir John Ashworth, who has died aged 86, was a distinguished biologist and educationalist who served in numerous leadership roles in universities and public health after a five-year stint (1976-81) as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Cabinet Office.
Ashworth was seconded from Essex University, where he was a professor of biology, to the Cabinet Office under the government of James Callaghan, but in 1979 he had a somewhat alarming initial encounter with Callaghan's successor at No 10, Margaret Thatcher.
He had asked for a meeting with the incoming Conservative Prime Minister and, as Charles Moore recounted in his biography of her, he was greeted with a brusque 'Who are you?'
'I'm your chief scientist,' Ashworth replied. 'Oh,' said Mrs Thatcher. 'Do I want one of those?' Ashworth explained his work, mentioning that he was working on a report about the then obscure subject of climate change. Mrs Thatcher stared at him and said: 'Are you standing there and seriously telling me that my government should worry about the weather?'
'I knew, if I didn't talk fast, I wouldn't have a job,' Ashworth recalled. In the event, he not only kept his job, but Mrs Thatcher went on to become the first political leader in any major country to warn of the dangers of climate change.
Ashworth, meanwhile, became an amused observer of her foibles, recalling that if she became over-excited when wearing earrings (she wore the clip-on variety) her lobes would become engorged and sometimes, under pressure, an earring would pop off.
He also become adept at steering Mrs Thatcher towards his own preferred policy conclusions. Early on, as part of her drive to reduce the number of quangos, she found herself confronted with the two that were the direct responsibility of the Cabinet Office: she was told by Ashworth and the then Cabinet Secretary Sir John Hunt that she had to choose between cutting either the National Council for Women or the Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development.
Without hesitation she opted to preserve the latter, only for Ashworth to point out that it might look bad for the first woman prime minister to get rid of the National Council for Women.
'Mrs Thatcher reluctantly agreed,' Charles Moore recorded, 'and the result, which the two officials in this Yes, Prime Minister game had intended, was that both quangos survived.'
John Ashworth was born on November 27 1938 in north Devon to Jack Ashworth and Constance, née Ousman. From West Buckland School and Exeter College, Oxford, he went on to complete a PhD in biochemistry at Leicester University, where his research focused on Dictyostelium – so-called 'slime moulds' that play an important role in the maintenance of balanced bacterial populations in soils.
In 1973 he was appointed Founding Professor of Biology at the University of Essex, where he helped to build a new department (now the School of Life Sciences). In 1981, after retiring from Whitehall, he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford, a difficult role which he assumed shortly after the announcement of swingeing cuts to higher education budgets. Salford was one of the worst affected, with cuts of 44 per cent.
'I was told that there were some members of staff who just sat weeping in their offices, refusing to come out,' Ashworth recalled. Over the next 10 years he did much to restore morale, diversifying courses and initiating fruitful links with industry.
In 1990 he became Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and over the next six years focused on securing the best teachers, libraries and facilities, fostering a collaborative spirit and a sense of community.
Moving into the public-health realm, from 2003 to 2007 he served as chairman of Barts and London NHS Trust and deputy chairman of the Institute of Cancer Research. From 2010 to 2014 he was a board member of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, where he led a campaign to raise £4.5 million for a new cancer centre.
He was particularly proud of his time as chairman of the British Library (1996-2001), where he presided over the opening, after 30 years, of its controversial new red-brick home in Euston Road. 'There were 1,000 legal suits between the library authorities and the contractors, so sorting all that out was quite a business,' he recalled. 'Now it's one of the best research libraries in the world and memories of the old days have gone. It was very satisfying.'
From 2002 Ashworth was president of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, during a time when, as he explained in an article in 2008, it faced huge demands to help academics fleeing Iraq – 'where the university system has been all but destroyed and nearly 300 academics have been assassinated since 2003'.
A keen sailor at his home in Wivenhoe, Essex, Ashworth was actively involved in the Nottage Maritime Institute and the Wivenhoe Sailing Club, and he chaired the Wivenhoe Pub Company until 2020. He was knighted in 2008.
In 1963 he married Ann Knight. She died in 1985, and in 1988 he married Auriol Stevens. She survives him with three daughters and a son from his first marriage and three stepchildren.
Sir John Ashworth, born November 27 1938, died March 3 2025
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