John Duncan Gregory

John Duncan Gregory (born May 26, 1878 - January 29, 1951 ) was a British diplomat .

Life and activity

Gregory was a son of Philip Gregory. He was educated at the Eton School . In 1902, Gregory entered the British Diplomatic Service. After he had passed the entrance examination, he was appointed clerk in the Foreign Office on April 10, 1902 . On October 26, 1903, he was appointed executive secretary 3rd class in the diplomatic service.

From October to November 1903, Gregory acted as secretary to the British representative at the Arbitration Tribunal for the clarification of the claims of the Venezuela (Venezuela Claims Arbitration Tribunal) in The Hague . In February 1906 he took over the post of Secretary of the Commission for the New Hebrides in London. On October 1, 1907, he achieved the rank of secretary 2nd class in the diplomatic service. At the same time he was transferred to the British Embassy in Vienna, to which he was the 2nd Secretary of the Embassy until April 11, 1909.

In April 1909, Gregory changed to the British representation in Bucharest . From June 25 to October 1, 1909, he acted there in the absence of the ambassador as charge d'affaires, before returning to the Foreign Office on October 7, 1909. In June 1911, Gregory attended the coronation of George V as an associate companion to the representative of the Republic of Cuba .

On October 1, 1913, Gregory reached the rank of Assistant Clerk in the Foreign Office. After the outbreak of the First World War he was assigned to the special mission of Henry Howard in the Vatican as secretary on December 7, 1914 , where he received the rank of executive secretary 1st class in the diplomatic service. On November 10, 1915, he returned to the Foreign Office.

From 1917 to 1920 Gregory headed the Russian Department in the British War Department. On December 1, 1919 he was appointed Counselor of Embassy.

On February 4, 1920, Gregory was appointed Assistant Secretary in the Foreign Office, a position he held until 1925. In this capacity, Gregory took part in October 1921 as the British Plenipotentiary at the Åland Island Conference in Geneva and signed the associated contract. In 1922 he was the main representative of the Foreign Office at the Genoa and The Hague conferences.

As secretary in the Foreign Office, Gregory headed the Northern Department of the Foreign Office from 1920 to 1925, which was responsible for Russia, Poland and the Baltic countries. In this position he was responsible for initiating the British-funded expeditions of Generals Denikin and Wrangel against the young Soviet Union .

In February 1928, Gregory was dismissed from the diplomatic service. The background was his involvement - together with two other members of the Foreign Office - in speculation in foreign currencies (or exchange rate fluctuations). An investigation into the affair acquitted him of illegal activities, but the Foreign Office came to the conclusion that he had behaved in a way that did not do justice to the demands that must be made of a man in his high position he was dismissed from civil service for this reason.

In 1928 Gregory published his autobiography. In 1935 a biography of the Austrian politician Engelbert Dollfuss followed .

family

Gregory was married to Gwendolyn Lind born in 1904. Maude, with whom he had two daughters.

Fonts

• On the Edge of Diplomacy. Rambles and Reflections 1902-1928 , 1929.
• Dolfuss and his Times , 1935.

literature

• The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book , 1925, p. 252.
• Who was who: A Companion to Who's Who, Containing the Biographies of Those who Died During the Period 1951-1960 , 1961, p. 454.
• Obituary in The Times, January 31, 1951.