Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

Horace James Seymour (26 February 1885 – 10 September 1978) was a British

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

who served in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and

Chungking Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Counc ...

. He was Principal Private Secretary to the British Foreign Secretary and Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. His most senior appointment was as British Ambassador to China from 1942 to 1946.

Early life and family

The elder son of Hugh Francis Seymour and Rachel Blanche Lascelles, and the great-grandson of Col.

Hugh Henry John Seymour Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Henry John Seymour (25 September 1790 – 2 December 1821) was a British Army officer and a politician. He sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for County Antrim from 1818 until his death. Family Seymour was ...

, a grandson of

Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, KG, PC, PC (Ire) (5 July 1718 – 14 June 1794) of Ragley Hall, Arrow, in Warwickshire, was a British courtier and politician who, briefly, was Viceroy of Ireland where he had substantial es ...

, and a descendant of

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (150022 January 1552) (also 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp), also known as Edward Semel, was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour (d. 1537), the third wife of King Henry VI ...

, Seymour was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

.'SEYMOUR, Sir Horace James', in ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edition by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, December 2007 (subscription required)
SEYMOUR, Sir Horace James
accessed 14 Aug 2008

Career

Seymour entered the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

and

Diplomatic Service Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to ...

in 1908. He was

Second Secretary Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seating ...

at the

British Embassy This is a list of diplomatic missions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, excluding honorary consulates. The UK has one of the largest global networks of diplomatic missions. UK diplomatic missions to capitals of other Com ...

to the United States in 1919, First Secretary in the Netherlands in 1923 and in Italy in 1925, then from 1932 to 1936

Principal Private Secretary A private secretary (PS) is a civil servant in a governmental department or ministry, responsible to a secretary of state or minister; or a public servant in a royal household, responsible to a member of the royal family. The role exists in t ...

to the

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

. He was next British Minister ('Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary') in

, from 1936 to 1939, Assistant

Under-Secretary of State Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister ...

at the Foreign Office, 1939 to 1942, and then Ambassador to China, from 1942 to 1946. He retired in 1947.''

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great Br ...

'', volume 2 (2003), p. 1886, as cited by Darryl Lundy a
Sir Horace James Seymour
The Peerage, accessed 30 November 2008 On 8 May 1944, Seymour presented the insignia of a

Knight Commander of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as on ...

He Yingqin He Yingqin, (; April 2, 1890 – October 21, 1987) also Ho Ying-chin, was a politician and one of the most senior generals of the Kuomintang (KMT) during Republic of China, and a close ally of Chiang Kai-shek. Early years A native of Guizhou, H ...

, Chinese Minister of War and Chief of the General Staff, in

.General He Yingqin Receives Award
gettyimages.co.uk, accessed 29 December 2020

Between April 1947 and July 1947, Seymour was a member of the Franco-Siamese Boundary Commission sitting in

, and in December 1947 he was appointed as chairman of the British Delegation to the Balkans Commission, based at

Salonika Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, Greece.

Marriage and children

In 1917, Horace James Seymour married Violet, a daughter of Thomas Edward Erskine, and they had three daughters, Jane (who died in infancy), Joan, and Virginia, and one son, Hugh Francis Seymour (1926—2010). They lived at Bratton House, near Westbury in Wiltshire.

Honours

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, George III, King George III. ...

, 1927 *

Commander of the Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Monarchy of Canada, Canadian monarch, Mon ...

, 1936 *Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, 1939 *Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, 1946

References

External links

Sir Horace James Seymour
portrait at

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

Photos of Sir Horace Seymour, in Joseph Needham Photographs
- Wartime China, 1942-1946 in the

Needham Research Institute The Needham Research Institute (NRI; zh , t = 李約瑟研究所 ), located on the grounds of Robinson College, in Cambridge, England, is a centre for research into the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia. The institute is n ...

The Papers of Sir Horace Seymour
held at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seymour, Horace James 1885 births 1978 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to China Horace James Seymour Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George People educated at Eton College Principal Private Secretaries to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Members of HM Diplomatic Service Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order 20th-century British diplomats