William Montagu-Pollock
Sir William Montagu-Pollock KCMG (12 July 1903 – 26 September 1993) was a British diplomat who was ambassador to Syria, Peru, Switzerland and Denmark.
Career
William Horace Montagu-Pollock was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1927[1] and served at Rome, Belgrade, Prague, Vienna and Stockholm (where he was chargé d'affaires during the Second World War) and then at the Foreign Office where he was the first Head of the Cultural Relations Department (CRD) for which role he was appointed CMG in the King's Birthday Honours of 1946.[2] The CRD had its origins in a small Foreign Office section created to give political direction to the British Council and to manage the political and policy aspects of the growing scale of organised international intellectual, cultural, societal and artistic contacts, with a view to promoting Allied goodwill; but it became, almost by accident, a small British front-line unit in a clandestine struggle to prevent Moscow's domination of the world of international movements, federations and assemblies – what would later be called ‘the battle of the festivals’.[3] Later, Montagu-Pollock was head of the General Department of the Foreign Office.
Montagu-Pollock was appointed Minister to Syria in 1950;[4] the post was upgraded to Ambassador in 1952.[5] He was appointed to be Ambassador to Peru in December 1953;[6] while he was in Peru he was knighted KCMG in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1957.[7] In May 1958 Sir William was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland[8] and in 1960 he became Ambassador to Denmark.[9]
Sir William retired from the Diplomatic Service in 1962. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the European Cultural Foundation, and was Chairman of the British Institute of Recorded Sound 1970–73. He was also Vice-President of the Society for the Promotion of New Music.
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Philip Mainwaring Broadmead |
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Damascus, then Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Damascus 1950–1953 |
Succeeded by Alfred John Gardener |
| Preceded by Sir Oswald Scott |
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Lima 1953–1958 |
Succeeded by Sir Berkeley Gage |
| Preceded by Sir Lionel Lamb |
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Berne 1958–60 |
Succeeded by Paul Francis Grey |
| Preceded by Sir Roderick Barclay |
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Copenhagen 1960–1962 |
Succeeded by Sir John Henniker-Major |
References
- MONTAGU-POLLOCK, Sir William Horace, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007, accessed 18 April 2012
- Obituary: Sir William Montagu-Pollock, The Independent, London, 5 October 1993
- Obituary: Sir William Montagu-Pollock, The Times, London, 18 October 1993
Notes
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 33248. p. 1042. 15 February 1927.
- ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 37598. p. 2761. 13 June 1946.
- ↑ Aldrich, Richard J. (2003) Putting culture into the Cold War: the Cultural Relations Department (CRD) and British covert information warfare, Intelligence and National Security, Vol.18 (No.2), pp.109-133. ISSN 0268-4527
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 39006. p. 4383. 29 August 1950.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 39763. p. 571. 27 January 1953.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 40032. p. 6533. 1 December 1953.
- ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 41089. p. 3371. 13 June 1957.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 41485. p. 5336. 29 August 1958.
- ↑ The Times, London, 21 October 1960, p.14