Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith

Julian Edward George Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith , KCMG (born April 22, 1916 - January 16, 2011 ) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator .

life and career

Origin and education

Asquith was born on April 22, 1916, the only son of barrister Raymond Asquith and his wife Katherine Horner. He was the grandson of the Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, Herbert Henry Asquith . Julian Asquith had two older sisters, the younger was Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, later Lady Hylton (1910-1996), who was married to William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton .

He inherited the title of Earl of Oxford and Asquith , died when his grandfather in 1928, as his father in the First World War had fallen. He was raised a Roman Catholic after his mother converted to Catholicism in 1923 . He attended St Ronan's School , followed by the leading Roman Catholic school in the UK , the Benedictine abbey at Ampleforth College . He was then a student at Balliol College of University of Oxford , where he met a master graduated.

After the outbreak of World War II , he was called up for military service. In 1941 Asquith served as a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers . He took part in the withdrawal of the British Army from Greece in April 1941. After the evacuation to Egypt he was briefly on the staff of the British Embassy in Cairo . In July 1941 he went to Beirut as aide-de-camp of Major-General Sir Edward Spears , who was then head of a British diplomatic mission in the Levant .

In 1942 Asquith returned to the Royal Engineers. He was posted to Safed in northern Palestine to set up secret ammunition depots in rock caves in order to be able to continue the fight behind enemy lines in the event that the German army would conquer Palestine.

A meeting with diplomat Christopher Pirie-Gordon , First Secretary to Alec Kirkbride , the UK Representative in Transjordan , resulted in an invitation to join the Palestine Administration Service . In 1942 Asquith became Assistant District Commissioner in Beer Sheva ; he held the office until 1948. Asquith left Palestine on the last day of the British mandate, May 15, 1948. While stationed in Jerusalem , he also served as private secretary to the High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Alan Cunningham .

Career

Asquith was Deputy Chairman Secretary of the British Administration in Tripolitania from 1949 to 1950 , Director of the Interior of Tripolitania in 1951, where one of his tasks was to dissolve the administrative and government structures established under Benito Mussolini's rule and the three territories of Tripolitania , Cyrenaica and Fezzan prepare for their political independence end 1,951th In 1952 he was advisor to the Prime Minister of Libya , Mahmud al-Muntasir , and confidante of Idris I , the king of the now independent Libya.

In 1953 he was transferred to Zanzibar as Administrative Secretary and was then colonial administrator of Saint Lucia from 1958 to 1962 . In 1958 he became the colonial administrator of the Leeward Islands . There he received, among others, Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill , both of whom were friends with his father. From 1962 to 1967 he was Governor ( Governor ) and Commander-in-Chief of the Seychelles . There he was responsible for 65,000 people. In 1965 his area of ​​responsibility was expanded to include British Indian Ocean Territory . In 1966 strikes for higher wages broke out in the Seychelles. Asquith warned that the local police force might not be able to cope with this and convinced the London government to provide two frigates . The strike ended with an agreement within a week. The employers agreed to raise their wages.

He was also Constitutional Commander of the Cayman Islands in 1971 and from 1973 to 1974 in the Turks and Caicos Islands . Then he retired.

Membership in the House of Lords

With his grandfather's title, Asquith also inherited the associated seat in the House of Lords . He lost it through the House of Lords Act 1999 .

Family and death

Asquith married Anne Mary Celestine Palairet (1916–1998), a daughter of Sir Michael Palairet (1882–1956) and his wife Mary de Vere Studd, on August 28, 1947. Both had met in Athens in 1941 ; Anne Palairet's father had been a diplomat at the British Embassy in Athens since 1917 and was appointed ambassador in 1942 . The marriage had five children: two sons, both diplomats, and three daughters, the middle one of whom is also married to a diplomat.

Asquith lived in Mells , near Frome in Somerset . In his private life, Asquith was particularly interested in politics, philosophy and religion. Asquith's mother also lived in Mells and died in 1976. He inherited her property.

Asquith died on January 16, 2011 at the age of 94. His eldest son, Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith (* 1952), a former British diplomat, inherited his title . Julian Asquith's younger son Dominic Asquith has been British Ambassador to Egypt since 2007 and was previously Ambassador to Iraq from 2006 to 2007 .

Honors

In 1961 he became Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George . In 1964 he became Knight Commander there .

literature

• Who's Who 2007 , A&C Black Publishers Ltd, 2007, ISBN 978-0713675269

Web links

• Julian Asquith at Hansard (English)
• Edward Julian George Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.
• The Earl of Oxford and Asquith obituary The Daily Telegraph

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Perdita Rose Mary Jolliffe (née Asquith), Lady Hylton Official Website of the National Portrait Gallery , accessed February 4, 2011
2. ↑ Foreign News: Earl of Oxford Time article dated February 2, 1925
3. ↑ Notable Alumni ( Memento of the original dated October 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. St Ronan's School website , accessed February 23, 2011  
4. ^ Anne Mary Celestine Palairet on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.
5. ^ Mary de Vere Studd on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
Herbert Asquith	Earl of Oxford and Asquith 1928-2011	Raymond Asquith