Alexander Clutterbuck

Sir Peter Alexander Clutterbuck GCMG MC (27 March 1897 – 29 December 1975) was a British diplomat who was high commissioner to Canada and India and ambassador to Ireland.

GCMG MC
Sir Alexander Clutterbuck
Personal details
Born
Peter Alexander Clutterbuck

(1897-03-27)27 March 1897
Gorakhpur, India
Died29 December 1975(1975-12-29) (aged 78)
NationalityBritish
OccupationBritish diplomat, high commissioner to Canada and India and ambassador to Ireland
Known forappointed GCMG

Life and career

Alexander's father, Sir Peter Clutterbuck, was an Inspector General of Forests in India and Burma.[1]

Peter Alexander Clutterbuck was educated at Malvern College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. During World War I, he served in the Coldstream Guards and was awarded the Military Cross and a mention in dispatches. After the war he entered the Civil Service, at first in the Post Office, transferring to the Colonial Office in 1922.[2]

He was secretary to the Donoughmore Commission 1927–28, and a member of the UK delegations to the League of Nations General Assembly in 1929, 1930 and 1931. He was secretary to the Newfoundland Royal Commission in 1933. He was High Commissioner to Canada 1946–52 and to India 1952–55. His term in India was cut short by ill health: he was advised not to continue to serve in a tropical climate and was appointed ambassador to the Republic of Ireland 1955–59.[3]

Finally, he was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Commonwealth Relations Office 1959–61.[4]

Clutterbuck was appointed CMG in the 1943 New Year Honours,[5] knighted KCMG in the New Year Honours of 1946[6] and raised to GCMG in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1952.[7]

Lord Garner, Clutterbuck's successor at the Commonwealth Relations Office, wrote:

Clutterbuck's appointment as High Commissioner to Ottawa in 1946 marked the first occasion when a career officer, assigned to a major Commonwealth post, showed that he could hold his own against any appointments from outside the services. Clutterbuck with his wife created an atmosphere of family feeling amongst the staff which radiated far beyond the confines of Earnscliffe and they ended as one of the most popular couples in a long line of successful British High Commissioners in Canada. ...


Above all Alec Clutterbuck was a Christian and a gentleman. Such phrases may sound out of fashion today, but there will be many past and present members of the service who will remember him with gratitude and affection and will recall the guiding lights of his life – loyalty, devotion to duty, integrity and, supremely, the Christian virtues of humility and charity.[8]

References
  1. "Malcolm Macdonald-time up". Dundee Courier. 26 January 1946. p. 3 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  2. The London Gazette, 5 January 1923. Accessed 14 October 2022.
  3. Ambassador in Dublin, The Times, London, 21 April 1955, page vi.
  4. "Sir A. Clutterbuck's New Post", The Times, London, 15 April 1959, pg. 12.
  5. Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 January 1943
  6. Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 January 1946
  7. Supplement to the London Gazette, 5 June 1952
  8. Lord Garner, Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, The Times, London, 3 January 1976, page 14

Portraits of Sir (Peter) Alexander Clutterbuck (1897-1975), Diplomat at the National Portrait Gallery, London

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