Arthur de la Mare

Sir Arthur de la Mare KCMG KCVO (15 February 1914 – 15 December 1994) was a British diplomat.

Career

Arthur James de la Mare was born into a farming family in Jersey. He was educated at Victoria College, Jersey, then won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in modern languages. He joined the Foreign Service in 1936 and served in Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. before being appointed ambassador to Afghanistan 1963–65,^[1] High Commissioner in Singapore 1968–70 and ambassador to Thailand 1970–73.^[2]

De la Mare's valedictory dispatches from Thailand and Singapore are included in Matthew Parris's book Parting Shots (Penguin, 2011).

He lived in the 1960s and 1970s in Walton on Thames, Surrey. He had an impish sense of humour. One of his neighbours, Valissa Gordon, saw Sir Arthur, somewhat shabbily dressed, doing the gardening in 1965. Assuming he was a hired hand, Mrs Gordon asked him whether he would be willing to do the gardening at her house. He readily agreed. It took him some weeks to reveal to his neighbour that he was the ex-ambassador to Afghanistan and a Knight of the British Empire.

Publications

• Perverse and Foolish: A Jersey Farmer's Son in the British Diplomatic Service, La Haule Books, Jersey, 1994

Honours

De la Mare was appointed CMG in 1957^[3] and knighted KCMG in 1968.^[4] After the Queen's visit to Thailand in 1972 she gave him the additional knighthood of KCVO^[5] and the King of Thailand made him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Elephant.

References

• de la MARE, Sir Arthur (James), Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012
• Sir Arthur de la Mare (obituary), The Times, London, 5 January 1995, page 21
• Obituaries : Sir Arthur de la Mare, The Independent, London, 31 December 1994

External links

• Portraits of Sir Arthur James de la Mare at the National Portrait Gallery, London