Glencairn Balfour Paul

Glencairn Balfour Paul CMG (September 23 1917–2 July 2008) was the British Ambassador to Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia before becoming an academic at Exeter University.

Educated at Sedbergh School, then Magdalen College, Oxford. He served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during World War II before being sent east to Egypt the on to Sudan. After the war he joined the Sudan Political Service before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1955.

He was appointed Ambassador to Iraq in 1969, Ambassador to Jordan in July 1972 and then Ambassador to Tunisia.

On the evening before his death he attended the opening of an exhibition of photographs taken by him in the Gulf during the 1950 and 1960s. He worked the room with customary dignity and a sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes and charmed all who met him. This made the subsequent news of his death all the more shocking to his many colleagues and friends who had gathered at the Institute of Arabian and Islamic Studies in Exeter for the annual Gulf Studies conference.

External links

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2536058/Glencairn-Balfour-Paul.html Telegraph obituary]