Amid questions over just how Northern Rock found itself leaning for support on the lender of last resort, the Newcastle-based bank’s chairman has remained out of sight.

Matt Ridley, the man responsible for overseeing Northern Rock, one of the country’s largest companies, was not available yesterday. It has been left to his executive team, led by Adam Applegarth, the chief executive, to reassure investors and field questions about the company’s future.

Perhaps Dr Ridley, a science author and formerly a writer at The Daily Telegraph and The Economist, was in London, helping to agree a sale of the company to a more secure suitor. However, that scenario is unlikely, according to those that know the company.

Dr Ridley lives on the Blagdon Estate, his family’s country pile near Newcastle, only a 20-minute drive up the A1 from Northern Rock’s head office in Gosforth. His father, Viscount Ridley, was a former chairman of Northern Rock when it was a building society. His uncle is Nicholas Ridley, the late Thatcherite minister.

One large shareholder questioned Dr Ridley’s position yesterday: “He’s an unusual guy to be running a large company. He’s not a business person.” The same shareholder said that it was difficult to get hold of Dr Ridley and questioned whether he was up to the job. He asked whether the chairman was the best-placed person to conclude a deal that would secure access to funds on a long-term basis.

Northern Rock is understood to have decided to concentrate its efforts on reassuring customers first. Mr Applegarth and David Baker, the deputy chief executive, both spent yesterday reiterating, through a series of television and radio interviews, that the bank remains solvent.

It is possible that Dr Ridley could emerge in the coming weeks once the flood of customers trying to withdraw money recedes and the bank can focus on its future. A Northern Rock spokesman insisted last night that Dr Ridley “is not hiding”.

Dr Ridley will earn £315,000 in the current financial year, a £15,000 increase on his 2006 chairman’s fee.

He has worked at Northern Rock for the past 13 years, seeing it through its demutualisation and rise into the FTSE 100.

Curriculum vitae

— Age: 49

— Education: Eton College; Magdalen College, Oxford

— Career: Science editor; America editor, The Economist. Columnist, Daily and Sunday Telegraph; science author

— Joined Northern Rock Building Society board in June 1994. Appointed non-executive director November 1996, deputy chairman in 2000, chairman in April 2004

— Chairman Northern 2 VCT and a non-executive director of PA Consulting Group

— Family: married, two children

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