Sir Richard Stafford Cripps, a Knight of the Order of the Companions of Honour, royal advisor, and member of the Royal Society, was born on April 24, 1889, and died on April 21, 1952. He was a British politician of the Labour Party, a lawyer, and a diplomat. In 1940, when Winston Churchill was forming a wartime coalition government, he appointed Cripps as ambassador to the Soviet Union, believing that his sympathy for the Marxists would enable him to negotiate with Joseph Stalin.

After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Cripps became a key figure in forming an alliance between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. Due to his popularity, in 1942, after leaving his post as ambassador, he was seen as a potential rival to Winston Churchill for the position of Prime Minister. He joined the coalition's war cabinet, but his attempts to resolve the military crisis in India, known as the 'Cripps Mission', were unsuccessful. Later, he served as Minister of Aircraft Production, a significant role but not part of the inner war cabinet.

In 1945, Cripps returned to the Labour Party and worked in the Attlee ministry, first as Minister of Trade and then from 1947 to 1950 as Minister of Finance.