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Humphrey Trevelyan Edit Profile

Diplomat Member of the House of Lords

Humphrey Trevelyan, Baron Trevelyan Knight of the Order of the Garter Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Street Michael and Street George International Commission on Illumination Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was a British diplomat and author

Background

Trevelyan was a son of Reverend George Trevelyan, grandson of the Venerable George Trevelyan, Archdeacon of Taunton, third son of Sir John Trevelyan, 4th Baronet.

Education

He was educated at Lancing and Jesus College, Cambridge.

Career

After Cambridge Trevelyan joined the Indian Civil Service. He served in India until independence in 1947, then transferred to Her Majesty Diplomatic Service. He held many key diplomatic posts, including charge in Beijing after the Revolution, ambassador to Egypt at the time of Suez, a development with which he was clearly uncomfortable, ambassador to Iraq at the time of the 1961 Kuwait crisis, Iraq"s first attempt to annex Kuwait, and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

He completed forty years of public service as the last high commissioner of Aden, where he wound up British rule and oversaw the British withdrawal from what had been the Aden Protectorate and became South Yemen.

Trevelyan wrote a number of books about his career, including The India We Left and The Middle East in Revolution. In 1968, he was elevated to the House of Lords as a life peer with the title Baron Trevelyan, of Saint Veep in the County of Cornwall.