Melville Richard John Guest (born 18 November 1943) is a British former diplomat and

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

er. He was born in what was then

Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

, two weeks after the death of his father,

Ernest Melville Charles Guest Ernest Melville Charles Guest (May 1920 – 4 October 1943) was a Southern Rhodesian Royal Air Force pilot of the Second World War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1942 having flown more than 1,000 operational hours. Pos ...

, a

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

pilot who was killed in action over the English Channel. He was educated at

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

and

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

,GUEST, Melville Richard John
''Who's Who 2017'', A & C Black, 2017 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2016) where he played cricket for the University from 1964–1966 and earned a

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

. In the

Varsity Match A varsity match is a fixture (especially of a sporting event or team) between two university teams, particularly Oxford and Cambridge. The Scottish Varsity rugby match between the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh at Murray ...

of 1965, Guest and his fellow batsman Mike Groves were barracked by the crowd for slow scoring, with 15 consecutive maiden overs bowled by the two

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

spinner Technology *Spinner (aeronautics), the aerodynamic cone at the hub of an aircraft propeller * Spinner (cell culture), laboratory equipment for cultivating plant or mammalian cells * Spinner (computing), a graphical widget in a GUI * Spinner (MIT Med ...

s. He was elected President of

Vincent's Club Vincent's Club is a sports club predominantly but not exclusively for Oxford blues at Oxford University. The club was founded in 1863 by oarsman Walter Bradford Woodgate (1841–1920) of Brasenose College, Oxford, and he was the first presi ...

in 1966. He entered the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...

(FCO) in 1966, with a first posting to Tokyo in 1967. After a tour of duty in Paris, he temporarily left the FCO and was managing director of Lucas France from 1980 to 1985. He was then a director of the Channel Tunnel Group before returning to the FCO in Tokyo in 1986 as commercial counsellor. His last overseas posting was as political counsellor and consul general in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

. He returned to the UK as head of the South Pacific department and then head of the South East Asia department. He left the FCO to become chief executive of Asia House, during which time he also took the role of executive director of the UK-Korea Forum for the Future and of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. He was also the secretary of the UK-India Round Table. He was a senior advisor for corporate and external affairs to

Imperial College, London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, 2005–13. He was appointed OBE in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to Britain's relations with Asia.

References

External links

Melville Guest
at CricketArchive

at

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guest, Melville 1943 births Living people English cricketers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Oxford University cricketers British diplomats People educated at Rugby School Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Wiltshire cricketers