Eric Dancer

Who is Eric Dancer?

Sir Eric Dancer KCVO CBE KStJ is a British businessman and currently Lord-Lieutenant of Devon.

Dancer was born in Sheffield in 1940. He won a scholarship to King Edward VII School and went on to study at Sheffield Polytechnic where he became a graduate of the Chartered Institute of Management and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and after moving to Devon in 1980 attained the Diploma in Company Direction at Exeter University.

His career has been in industry, with over 30 years at Board level of which the last 20 were as Managing Director of Dartington Crystal, prior to his retirement in 2000.

He was the founding Chairman of Devon and Cornwall Training and Enterprise Council, the TEC National Council, the West Country Development Corporation, served as a National TEC Assessor, Advisor to the Secretary of State for Employment, Member of the National Training Task Force, Member of the Councils of the CBI and Royal Society of Arts and as a Governor of the University of Plymouth.

In 1988 he was appointed Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Devon, a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John and Justice of the Peace. In 2001 he received an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University and in 2002 was commissioned Honorary Captain Royal Naval Reserve. Honorary Doctorates of Law and Business were conferred by Exeter and Plymouth Universities respectively in 2010.