Henry Galton Darwin (6 November 1929 – 17 September 1992) was a British lawyer and diplomat specialising in

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

Biography

Darwin was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, the second son (of four) and third child (of five) of the

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

Sir Charles Galton Darwin Sir Charles Galton Darwin (19 December 1887 – 31 December 1962) was an English physicist who served as director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the Second World War. He was a son of the mathematician George Howard Darwin a ...

and his wife Katharine Pember, a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He was a great-grandson of the naturalist

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

. In 1958 he married Jane Christie, an English teacher; they had three daughters: * Sophia Katherine Darwin (born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

between 1961 and 1963),

* Emma L. Darwin (born 1964) -

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

* Carola Frances Darwin (born 1967),

opera singer Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libretti ...

Darwin was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1953. He served as assistant Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office 1954-1960 and again 1963-1967, at which time he was one of the three drafters of the

Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted ...

, being flown to Moscow in July 1963 to advise

Lord Hailsham Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancello ...

on the drafting when negotiations were successful; between 1960 and 1963 he was Legal Adviser to the British Embassy in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. He was then Legal Counsellor to the UK Mission to the United Nations in

Manhattan, New York Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

1967-1970, before returning to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 1970-1973. He then worked as Director-General Legal Secretariat European Communities Brussels 1973-1976. He was Deputy Legal Adviser to the FCO 1976-1984, during which time in 1977 he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. He played a major role in the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (

UNCLOS III The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 ...

), which took place from 1973 through 1982, and was a member of the Preparatory Commission after 1982. He was Second Legal Adviser FCO 1984-1989, when he retired. Darwin died in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 17 September 1992. At the time of his death he was leading a group examining legal issues connected with the former Yugoslavia.

Publications

References

* * ‘DARWIN, Henry Galton’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 200
accessed 16 Jan 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwin, Henry Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George 1929 births 1992 deaths British diplomats Lawyers from Edinburgh 20th-century British lawyers