Stafford Cripps - Personal Life

Personal Life

Cripps had suffered for many years from colitis, inflammation of the lower bowel, a condition aggravated by excessive stress. In 1950 his health broke down under the strain and he was forced to resign his office in October. He resigned from Parliament the same month, and at the resulting by-election on 30 November he was succeeded as MP for Bristol South East by Tony Benn. Cripps died two years later while recuperating in Switzerland.

Cripps was the nephew maternally of Beatrice Webb, whose sister Theresa Potter was his mother. He was married to Isobel, Lady Cripps, better known as Dame Isobel Cripps (1891–1979), and had four children

• Sir John Stafford Cripps (1912–1993) whose only son is married, and has issue. Sir John's son and grandson are in remainder to the Barony of Parmoor.
• Isobel Diana Cripps (1913–1985) who died unmarried
• (Anne) Theresa Cripps (1919–1998), who was married 1945 to Sir Robert Cornwallis Gerald St. Leger Ricketts, 7th Bt, and had two sons and two daughters. The elder son Sir Tristram Ricketts, 8th Bt. succeeded his father, died in 2007, and has been succeeded by his own son, Sir Stephen Ricketts, 9th Bt.
• Peggy Cripps, born Enid Margaret Cripps (1921–2006), children's author, philanthropist and socialite. Peggy Cripps shocked much British opinion by marrying the black African aristocrat Nana Joseph Emmanuel Appiah (1918–1990), a relative of the Ashanti king of Ghana, in June 1953. Peggy Appiah had one son and three daughters. Her son is the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (b. May 1954 London), the Laurance S. Rockefeller professor of philosophy at Princeton University. Her three daughters live in Namibia, Nigeria, and Ghana and have had eight children between them.

Cripps was a vegetarian, certainly for health reasons and possibly also for ethical reasons. "Cripps suffered from recurring illness which was alleviated by nature cure and a vegetarian diet...".