 He succeeded his father, Sir John Gawen Carew Pole, 12th Baronet, in 1993.Sir Richard is a Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Cornwall, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, the Pilgrim Trust, and the Eden Project, a Governor of Gresham's School, Holt, and President of the Cornwall Gardens Trust.He was High Sheriff of Cornwall for 1978 and is a past Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and a past president of the Royal Horticultural Society, from which he received the Victoria Medal of Honour in 2007.