Humphrey Trevelyan, Baron Trevelyan,
KG,
GCMG,
CIE,
OBE (27 November 1905 – 9 February 1985) was a British diplomat and author.
Trevelyan was a son of Reverend George Trevelyan, grandson of the Venerable George Trevelyan,
Archdeacon of
Taunton, third son of
Sir John Trevelyan, 4th Baronet. He was educated at
Lancing College and
Jesus College, Cambridge. After Cambridge Trevelyan joined the Indian Civil Service. He served in India until independence in 1947, then transferred to HM Diplomatic Service. He held many key diplomatic posts, including charge in
Beijing after the Revolution, ambassador to
Egypt at the time of
Suez, ambassador to
Iraq at the time of the 1961
Kuwait crisis, Iraq's first attempt to annex Kuwait, and ambassador to the
Soviet Union. He completed forty years of public service as the last high commissioner of
Aden, where he wound up British rule and oversaw the British withdrawal from what had been the
Aden Protectorate and became
South Yemen.
Trevelyan wrote a number of books about his career, including The India We Left.
In 1968, he was elevated to the
House of Lords as a
life peer with the title Baron Trevelyan, of
Saint Veep in the County of
Cornwall.