Paul Gore-Booth, Baron Gore-Booth

Paul Henry Gore-Booth, Baron Gore-Booth (3 February 1909 – 29 June 1984) was a British diplomat.

He was British High Commissioner to India, 1960 to 1965, then Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Head of HM Diplomatic Service, retiring in 1969, after which was created a life peer and went into business. He was a member of the House of Lords from 1969 until his death.

Early life

Gore-Booth was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. His aunt was the Irish republican and socialist revolutionary, Countess Markievicz (née Gore-Booth).

Career

Gore-Booth joined the British Foreign Service in 1933, serving in the Foreign Office in London from 1933 to 1936, and then was stationed in Vienna, 1936–37, Tokyo, 1938–42, and Washington, 1942–45, where he attended the Hot Springs Food Conference in 1943. He returned to the Foreign Office in London, 1945–49, attending the UNRRA Conference, 1943, the Chicago Civil Aviation Conference, 1944, the San Francisco Conference, 1945, and the UN Assembly, January and October 1946 (as Secretary of the UK Delegation), and in 1947 as the British Representative, Group of Four Drafting Convention setting up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He served as Head of the UN Economic and Social and Refugees Departments, 1947–48; Head of European Recovery Department, Foreign Office, 1948–49; Director of British Information Services in United States, 1949–53; Ambassador to Burma, 1953–56; Deputy Under-Secretary (Economic Affairs), Foreign Office, 1956–60; British High Commissioner to India, 1960–65; Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1965–69; and Head of HM Diplomatic Service, 1968–69.

After retirement from the civil service Gore-Booth was a director of Grindlays Bank and the United Kingdom Provident Institution, 1969–1979. He also served as Registrar of the Order of St Michael and St George, from 1966 to 1979,

as president of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, 1967–1979; chairman, Save the Children Fund, 1970–1976; chairman, Windsor Music Festival, 1971–1973; member, Disasters Emergency Committee, 1974–77; chairman, board of governors, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1975–1980.