Ratcliffe's father owned a King's Lynn flour mill, but moved to work as a railway clerk in Manchester when that business failed.
In 1903 Ratcliffe became the acting editor of The Statesman, and continued with the newspaper until 1907 when he was forced to resign for espousing Indian nationalism.
[2] Returning to London, he worked for the Daily News under A. G. Gardiner, as well as writing for the Manchester Guardian, The Spectator, the Nation and the Contemporary Review.
For the next three decades he spent the winter months lecturing across the United States: "It is probable", suggested his Manchester Guardian obituarist, "that no Englishman ever travelled so many miles in America or was heard by so many thousands of people there as he.
After the couple divorced in 1945, Monica married Cambridge University scientist Arnold Beck with whom she brought up Nicolas.