Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
NameSir John Rupert Colville 
[54, His own article]
[54, His own article]Birth28 Jan 1915, London
Death19 Nov 1987, Winchester station
General3rd & yst s. Diplomat and Churchill’s Private Secretary. Kt: 1974
EducationWest Down School. Harrow. Trinity Cantab
FatherGeorge Charles Colville MBE (1867-1943)
MotherDame Helen Cynthia Crewe-Milnes (1884-1968)
Notes for Sir John Rupert Colville
He and Margaret had 2 s. and 1 dau.
DNB Main notes for Sir John Rupert Colville
Colville, SIR John Rupert (1915–1987)
Colville, SIR John Rupert (1915–1987), diplomat and private secretary, was born in London 28 January 1915, the youngest of three sons (there were no daughters) of the Hon. George Charles Colville, barrister, and his wife, Lady (Helen) Cynthia Crewe-Milnes, daughter of Robert Offley Ashburton *Crewe-Milnes, Marquess of Crewe [q.v.] , politician. He was educated at West Downs School and Harrow and continued on a senior scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a first class in part i of the history tripos and a second class (division I) in part ii (1936). In 1937 he joined the Diplomatic Service and after only two years was seconded to 10 Downing Street to act as assistant private secretary to Neville *Chamberlain [q.v.] . He liked and admired Chamberlain and would have favoured Viscount (later the Earl of) *Halifax [q.v.] to succeed him in May 1940—‘I am afraid it must be Winston,’ he wrote regretfully in his diary—but even then he conceded *Churchill [q.v.] 's drive and determination and he was quickly converted into one of the most devoted of his supporters.
Exciting and congenial though he found the work in No. 10, after the outbreak of World War II Colville resolved to enter the armed forces, and in October 1941 he overcame the opposition of the Foreign Office and the handicap of bad eyesight and joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. After training in South Africa he was commissioned as a pilot officer and joined No. 268 Squadron of the Second Tactical Air Force, flying Mustang fighters. In spite of periodic efforts by Churchill to recapture him, he remained with the air force until the end of 1943 and was allowed to rejoin his unit for the invasion of France, returning to Whitehall for good in August 1944.
Although in spirit a Conservative, who had contemplated standing as such in 1945, Colville greatly admired C. R. (later first Earl) *Attlee [q.v.] 's honesty, efficiency, and common sense, and found no difficulty in serving under him when Labour came to power. However, his career was still diplomacy and in October 1945 he returned to the Foreign Office to work in the southern department. After the dramas of No. 10 the work lacked savour, and within two years he had moved away again to become private secretary to the twenty-year-old Princess Elizabeth (1947–9). It was a natural appointment for a former page of honour to King *George V [q.v.] , whose mother was a woman of the bedchamber to Queen *Mary [q.v.] . No one would have been surprised if he had remained in royal service, but after two years he returned to diplomacy and was posted to Lisbon (1947–51) as first secretary.
It was not for long; when Churchill became prime minister in October 1951, Colville was invited—commanded, almost—to rejoin him as principal private secretary. When Churchill suffered a severe stroke in June 1953 but refused to allow his powers to be delegated, Colville and the prime minister's son-in-law and parliamentary private secretary, Christopher (later Baron) *Soames [q.v.] , found themselves called on to make decisions on matters about which they would normally never have been consulted. For almost a month, with the encouragement and support of the secretary of the cabinet, Sir Norman *Brook (later Baron Normanbrook) [q.v.] , they dealt with government departments which had no conception of the gravity of the prime minister's condition, acting in his name and articulating what they believed would have been his views. They handled their duties with tact and discretion, but the experience fortified Colville's resolve not to return yet again to diplomacy after Churchill's resignation in April 1955.
Instead, he embarked on two new careers. He joined Hill Samuel and became a director of the National & Grindlay, Ottoman, and Coutts's banks and chairman of Eucalyptus Pulp Mills. He also took to writing. His first book, a biography of the sixth Viscount *Gort [q.v.] , Man of Valour (1972), won excellent reviews and encouraged him to follow it with, among others, a study of Churchill's entourage, The Churchillians (1981), and an autobiographical volume, Footprints in Time (1976). His best known work, however, was his edition of the diaries which he had kept while at No. 10, The Fringes of Power (1985), a colourful, informative, and admirably honest account of the years he spent working for Churchill. He also served as treasurer of the National Association of Boys' Clubs and president of the New Victoria Hospital in Kingston. Colville was appointed CVO (1949) and CB (1955), and was knighted in 1974. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour and an honorary fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge (1971), in whose foundation he played a role.
By birth, upbringing, and career, Colville seemed a quintessential establishment figure, but any tendency to pomposity or undue conventionality was curbed by his keen eye for the ridiculous. His tact, charm, good judgement, and readiness always to tell the truth when necessary, made him an ideal private secretary. He was stocky and of medium height, very dark, with a roundish face and slightly Latin appearance—‘Who is that foreigner with an English wife?’ people would sometimes ask when he was abroad. His hair went grey when he was in his forties, which gave him a more distinguished air: this concerned him little; he took no particular trouble over his appearance and, without being scruffy, was rarely smart. He married in 1948 Lady Margaret Egerton, lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth and daughter of John Francis Granville Scrope Egerton, fourth Earl of Ellesmere. They had two sons and a daughter. He was still leading and enjoying an active life when on 19 November 1987 he suffered a heart attack while at Winchester station and died almost immediately.
Sources
John Colville, The Fringes of Power, 1985, and Footprints in Time, 1976; private information; personal knowledge.
PHILIP ZIEGLER
publication: 1996
Colville, SIR John Rupert (1915–1987), diplomat and private secretary, was born in London 28 January 1915, the youngest of three sons (there were no daughters) of the Hon. George Charles Colville, barrister, and his wife, Lady (Helen) Cynthia Crewe-Milnes, daughter of Robert Offley Ashburton *Crewe-Milnes, Marquess of Crewe [q.v.] , politician. He was educated at West Downs School and Harrow and continued on a senior scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a first class in part i of the history tripos and a second class (division I) in part ii (1936). In 1937 he joined the Diplomatic Service and after only two years was seconded to 10 Downing Street to act as assistant private secretary to Neville *Chamberlain [q.v.] . He liked and admired Chamberlain and would have favoured Viscount (later the Earl of) *Halifax [q.v.] to succeed him in May 1940—‘I am afraid it must be Winston,’ he wrote regretfully in his diary—but even then he conceded *Churchill [q.v.] 's drive and determination and he was quickly converted into one of the most devoted of his supporters.
Exciting and congenial though he found the work in No. 10, after the outbreak of World War II Colville resolved to enter the armed forces, and in October 1941 he overcame the opposition of the Foreign Office and the handicap of bad eyesight and joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. After training in South Africa he was commissioned as a pilot officer and joined No. 268 Squadron of the Second Tactical Air Force, flying Mustang fighters. In spite of periodic efforts by Churchill to recapture him, he remained with the air force until the end of 1943 and was allowed to rejoin his unit for the invasion of France, returning to Whitehall for good in August 1944.
Although in spirit a Conservative, who had contemplated standing as such in 1945, Colville greatly admired C. R. (later first Earl) *Attlee [q.v.] 's honesty, efficiency, and common sense, and found no difficulty in serving under him when Labour came to power. However, his career was still diplomacy and in October 1945 he returned to the Foreign Office to work in the southern department. After the dramas of No. 10 the work lacked savour, and within two years he had moved away again to become private secretary to the twenty-year-old Princess Elizabeth (1947–9). It was a natural appointment for a former page of honour to King *George V [q.v.] , whose mother was a woman of the bedchamber to Queen *Mary [q.v.] . No one would have been surprised if he had remained in royal service, but after two years he returned to diplomacy and was posted to Lisbon (1947–51) as first secretary.
It was not for long; when Churchill became prime minister in October 1951, Colville was invited—commanded, almost—to rejoin him as principal private secretary. When Churchill suffered a severe stroke in June 1953 but refused to allow his powers to be delegated, Colville and the prime minister's son-in-law and parliamentary private secretary, Christopher (later Baron) *Soames [q.v.] , found themselves called on to make decisions on matters about which they would normally never have been consulted. For almost a month, with the encouragement and support of the secretary of the cabinet, Sir Norman *Brook (later Baron Normanbrook) [q.v.] , they dealt with government departments which had no conception of the gravity of the prime minister's condition, acting in his name and articulating what they believed would have been his views. They handled their duties with tact and discretion, but the experience fortified Colville's resolve not to return yet again to diplomacy after Churchill's resignation in April 1955.
Instead, he embarked on two new careers. He joined Hill Samuel and became a director of the National & Grindlay, Ottoman, and Coutts's banks and chairman of Eucalyptus Pulp Mills. He also took to writing. His first book, a biography of the sixth Viscount *Gort [q.v.] , Man of Valour (1972), won excellent reviews and encouraged him to follow it with, among others, a study of Churchill's entourage, The Churchillians (1981), and an autobiographical volume, Footprints in Time (1976). His best known work, however, was his edition of the diaries which he had kept while at No. 10, The Fringes of Power (1985), a colourful, informative, and admirably honest account of the years he spent working for Churchill. He also served as treasurer of the National Association of Boys' Clubs and president of the New Victoria Hospital in Kingston. Colville was appointed CVO (1949) and CB (1955), and was knighted in 1974. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour and an honorary fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge (1971), in whose foundation he played a role.
By birth, upbringing, and career, Colville seemed a quintessential establishment figure, but any tendency to pomposity or undue conventionality was curbed by his keen eye for the ridiculous. His tact, charm, good judgement, and readiness always to tell the truth when necessary, made him an ideal private secretary. He was stocky and of medium height, very dark, with a roundish face and slightly Latin appearance—‘Who is that foreigner with an English wife?’ people would sometimes ask when he was abroad. His hair went grey when he was in his forties, which gave him a more distinguished air: this concerned him little; he took no particular trouble over his appearance and, without being scruffy, was rarely smart. He married in 1948 Lady Margaret Egerton, lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth and daughter of John Francis Granville Scrope Egerton, fourth Earl of Ellesmere. They had two sons and a daughter. He was still leading and enjoying an active life when on 19 November 1987 he suffered a heart attack while at Winchester station and died almost immediately.
Sources
John Colville, The Fringes of Power, 1985, and Footprints in Time, 1976; private information; personal knowledge.
PHILIP ZIEGLER
publication: 1996