Anthony James Moxon Lowther-Pinkerton,

LVO 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, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

, DL (born 28 September 1960) is the former

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

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

and

Duchess of Cambridge Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...

and to

Prince Harry Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. He is fifth in the line of succ ...

. He was appointed on 2 May 2005 and resigned as full-time Private Secretary with effect from September 2013, remaining for a single day a week in order to mentor and advise the younger staff who shall have to succeed him. From 1979 to 1998 he was an officer in the British Army, serving with the

Irish Guards The Irish Guards (IG), is one of the Foot Guards regiments of the British Army and is part of the Guards Division. Together with the Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of the two Irish infantry regiments in the British Army. The regiment has parti ...

and the

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

(SAS), including in the first Gulf War, and in Colombia and the Balkans. He is godfather to Prince George.

Biography

Early life

Brought up in

Alderton, Suffolk Alderton is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about six miles north of Felixstowe, 10 miles south-east of Woodbridge and 2 miles south of Hollesley, on the North Sea coast and in the heart of the Suf ...

, he is descended from the Lowther

landed gentry The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, th ...

family, and shares a descent from the 1st Earl of Bessborough with his royal employers. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

. His first career was in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. He trained at the

Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...

in 1979, and joined the

. Lowther-Pinkerton served with the 1st

Battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...

Irish Guards, but was attached to the

(SAS) throughout his 20-year army career, where he was described as an especially capable officer.
/sup> He retired from the Army in 1998.

Career

He served as

Equerry An equerry (; from French ' stable', and related to 'squire') is an officer of honour. Historically, it was a senior attendant with responsibilities for the horses of a person of rank. In contemporary use, it is a personal attendant, usually up ...

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

1984–1986, and was promoted to

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

on 8 June 1986. He was a

troop A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the infantry section or platoon. Exceptions are the US Cavalry and the King's Troop Ro ...

commander of the SAS as a Captain. He served in the first

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

in 1990-1991 as

Special Forces Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...

Liaison Officer A Liaison officer is a person who liaises between two or more organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities on a matter of mutual concern. Generally, liaison officers are used for achieving the best utilization of resources, or empl ...

with United States forces.
/sup> He was promoted to the rank of Major (UK), Major on 30 September 1992, and was in charge of two 20-man SAS counter-narcotics operations in Colombia for two years in the early 1990s. He attended the

Staff College, Camberley Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, which i ...

, and qualified as a

staff officer A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...

( psc). Lowther-Pinkerton was Commanding Officer of G

Squadron Squadron may refer to: * Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies * Squadron (aviation), a military unit that consists of three or four flights with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, ...

SAS. In the mid-to-late 1990s he was in the Balkans for the strategic policy review by the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

; reportedly in 1994 as part of a four-man SAS "Joint Communication Organisation" in Bosnia.
/sup> In 2001 he co-founded and has since been a director of Objective Travel Safety, which provides

risk assessment Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of: # identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and # making judgments "on the to ...

training for young travellers and journalists. He trained

Ewan McGregor Ewan Gordon McGregor ( ; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British ...

and

Charley Boorman Charley Boorman (born 23 August 1966) is a British TV presenter, travel writer and actor. A motorbike enthusiast, Boorman has made three long-distance motorcycle rides with his friend Ewan McGregor, documented in ''Long Way Round'' (2004), ''Lo ...

for their ''

Long Way Round ''Long Way Round'' (''LWR'') is a British television series and book documenting the journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York City on motorcycles. They travelled eastwards through Europe and Asia, flew to Alaska, ...

'' and ''

Long Way Down ''Long Way Down'' is a television series and book documenting a motorcycle journey undertaken in 2007 by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, from John o' Groats in Scotland through eighteen countries in Europe and Africa to Cape Town in South ...

'' TV series. He is a part-time consultant to Kroll Risk Management, London.
/sup> He was appointed

Member 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, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...

(MVO) for his service as Equerry to The Queen Mother in 1986,

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in 1990 for service with the special forces in Colombia, and

Lieutenant 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, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, o ...

(LVO) in the 2013 New Year Honours. Until 2021 Lowther-Pinkerton served as a trustee for the veteran support and archaeology charity Waterloo Uncovered, which conducts excavations at the site of the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

with veterans and serving personnel.

Personal life

He is married to Susannah Lowther-Pinkerton (born Susannah Lucy Richards) with four children.A third daughter was born in 2007, Dare Lowther-Pinkerton See ibid for details. The family lives in Suffolk. His ten-year-old son, William "Billy" Lowther-Pinkerton, was one of the pageboys at the

wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton took place on Friday, 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London, England. The groom was second in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple had been in a relationship since ...

in April 2011.

References

External links

* Michael Evans and Andrew Pierce
"SAS hero parachuted in for princes: Drug-busting officer who specialises in risk management to guard William and Harry"
''The Times'', 4 March 2005. *Jim Gilchrist
"The Special Heir Service"
''The Scotsman'' 29 April 2005
Waterloo Uncovered.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowther-Pinkerton, Jamie 1960 births Living people People educated at Eton College People from Suffolk Coastal (district) Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Irish Guards officers Lieutenants of the Royal Victorian Order Members of the Order of the British Empire Deputy Lieutenants of Suffolk Special Air Service officers Equerries Military personnel from Suffolk British Army personnel of the Gulf War