Sir Percy Loraine, 12th Baronet

Sir Percy Lyham Loraine, 12th Baronet, GCMG, PC (5 November 1880 – 23 May 1961) was a British diplomat.

Loraine was born in London, the second son of Sir Lambton Loraine, 11th Baronet, and his wife, Frederica Mary Horatia "née" Broke. He was educated at Eton College and entered New College, Oxford, in 1899, but left to serve in the Second Boer War as a lieutenant with the East Kent Imperial Yeomanry. He joined the Foreign Office in March 1904, and served in Constantinople from 1904 to 1907 and in Tehran from 1907 to 1909. He learned both Turkish and Persian. In 1909, he was posted to Rome with the rank of second secretary, and temporarily to Peking in 1911. He next served in Paris from 1912 to 1916, and in Madrid (with the rank of first secretary) from 1916 to 1918. He succeeded his father as twelfth baronet on 13 May 1917, his elder brother, Eustace, a captain in the Grenadier Guards, having died in a flying accident in 1912.

Loraine was attached to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, but found that working for tired and overburdened men was disheartening; more congenial was battling with the Bolsheviks in Eastern Europe. In October 1919, he was appointed Sir George Clerk's assistant on the mission which thwarted Bela Kun in Hungary, and from there went immediately to Poland where he witnessed the Polish success in repelling the Bolshevik armies from Warsaw; he helped to moderate extravagant Polish frontier demands.

The Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, had spotted Loraine's zeal, and in 1920, offered him the counsellorship in Tehran to help win ratification for 'his' treaty; but Loraine, who had just inherited Northumbrian estates, pleaded for a home posting, and joined Curzon's personal staff. The two north-country landowners, with their shared feudal outlook, found that they had much in common; nevertheless Loraine was astounded when in July 1921, Curzon begged him to become Minister to Persia and salvage what he could from a treaty which the Persians had rejected. Loraine early recognized Reza Khan as the likely winner of the local struggle for power; he appreciated Reza's directness. But his assignment was dogged by conflicting British obligations – to Khaz'al Khan in the oil province of Khuzestan, and to Reza, who was bent on controlling all Persia. In bad faith, Reza seized the sheikh and removed him to Tehran, where he later died. Loraine spent much effort trying to correct this injustice, and to combat Soviet influence in Persia. He was advanced to KCMG in June 1925, having been appointed a CMG in June 1921.

An interesting pen portrait of Loraine in middle age was provided by Lord Gladwyn, who served under him in Tehran. Gladwyn found Loraine to be a 'brooding presence' but 'fine-looking...highly industrious and pretty shrewd'. Loraine was rather remote in his relations with Foreign Office subordinates and acquired the nickname "Ponderous Percy", but Gladwyn judged ultimately that 'within his limits he was a model diplomat'. Superiors at the Foreign Office, however, like Sir Orme Sargent, found his dispatches wordy, and occasionally vapid.

Loraine's posting to Tehran coincided with his marriage, on 23 October 1924, to Louise Violet Beatrice, elder daughter of Major-General Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley. His wife was a noted beauty and a considerable support for him in his diplomatic career. They had no children, and Lady Loraine suffered severely from arthritis in later life, which made her a semi-invalid.

Loraine next served for three years as Minister to Greece, from December 1926 until August 1929, when he was appointed High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding the imperious Lord Lloyd. Here, his technique of establishing personal relations with a leader failed him. Leaving King Fuad to sort out differences with his ministers yielded neither a treaty with Britain nor mitigation of the tussle between king, parties, and residency. To Loraine's disappointment he was replaced, and in December 1933, transferred to Turkey. Even appointment to the Privy Council in the same month did not reconcile him to that 'godforsaken hole'.

But Loraine was mistaken; his Turkish service was a success. He established, with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, even closer relations than those with Reza Shah. They played bridge and poker together, talked far into the night, and agreed on Anglo-Turkish friendship. Loraine's biographer, Gordon Waterfield, pointed out, however, that embassy staff in Ankara thought that Loraine overdid his hero worship of Atatürk, and his attempt to pretend that Atatürk was not a dictator because he was deliberately trying to create a system of government that would survive him, did not convince. Loraine left Turkey shortly after Kemal's death, confident that Anglo-Turkish friendship was firm. He had been advanced to a GCMG in May 1937.

Loraine was a strong candidate for the vacant post in Berlin in 1937 when Sir Eric Phipps was recalled, but Anthony Eden wanted him to remain in post in Ankara. Later, Eden was to write of his deep regret that he did not choose Loraine or Miles Lampson, rather than the more controversial Nevile Henderson. Loraine had been 'stunned and disheartened', according to his biographer, when Eden told him that he was not to get the Berlin post, but he was promised an important one within a year or two. He was a convinced supporter of appeasement and approved of the Munich Agreement which, he told Lord Halifax, had avoided 'another gruesome and futile slaughter'.

The new posting to Italy duly came in May 1939, and Loraine earned the respect of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Galeazzo Ciano for standing up to Mussolini. Crucially, however, Churchill was critical of Loraine's diplomacy in Rome when he joined Chamberlain's government in September 1939. Nevertheless, there was little Loraine could have done to prevent Mussolini's madcap slide into war in June 1940. On his return to England, Loraine much resented official failure to use his talent. Churchill would not see him, he thought his Middle East experience wasted and he spent the war in frustration.

Tall, discreet, immaculately dressed, Loraine nevertheless looked forbidding; he would have liked to unbend, but found this difficult, being essentially shy. He never discussed ideas, and preferred cards or backgammon to chat. His memory was excellent and his judgement good, but he delegated too little. Gladwyn was not the only diplomat to find him intimidating. But he mellowed in old age, became a keen racehorse owner and was described by "The Times"' racing correspondent on his death, as a 'charming and enthusiastic owner'. His horse, "Queenpot" won the 1,000 Guineas Stakes in 1948, and another came third in the Epsom Derby. His most enduring contribution to racing was his role as chairman of the Race Finish Recording Company from 1946 until 1959, from which position he oversaw the introduction in Britain and elsewhere of the photo finish. He died at his home, 19 Wilton Crescent, London, on 23 May 1961, and was buried at Kirkharle, Northumberland. The baronetcy became extinct on his death.

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