Paul Cairn Vellacott was born on 24 May 1891, son of W. E. Vellacott, of White House, Hadley, Barnet. Educated at Marlborough College and recommended for admission at Peterhouse by F. Fletcher, M.A., Head Master. Admitted to the college on 18 Dec. 1909, by Scholarship Examination; commenced residence 3 Oct. 1910 and was awarded a £50 Entrance Scholarship in history on 2 Nov., re-elected 1912. Entrance Scholar, History, £50. History Tripos, Part I, 1912, Class II; Part II, 1913, Class I. Appointed to a lectureship at the U. of Hong Kong, not taken up because of the war. Enlisted as a private in the 7th Battalion, S. Lancs Regiment in Sept. 1914; from July 1915 with the British Expeditionary Force in France; by 1917 second-in-command of the battalion; also in 1917 in temporary command, with rank of acting lieutenant-colonel of the 9th Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment. After Passchendaele appointed brigade major to the 23rd Brigade in the 8th Division. Three times mentioned in dispatches. D.S.O. 1917; wounded March 1918 with permanent effect. Picked up by German stretcher-bearers after 2 days. Repatriated 1 Jan. 1919. May to Dec. 1919: head of Statistics Section, Ministry of Munitions. Oct. 1919: elected Fellow of Peterhouse; 1920-34 tutor and lecturer in history. 1934-39: Head Master of Harrow. 1939: elected Master of Peterhouse in succession to his mentor, Harold William Vazeille Temperley, but remained at Harrow until the end of the year. Jan. 1941: appointed to the directorate of the Home Guard at the War Office. 1941-2: toured the country as Inspector of Administration of the Home Guard. 1942-4: in Cairo and Palestine as head of political warfare mission against enemy-occupied countries in Europe and N. Africa engaged in propaganda and collection of propaganda and intelligence material. 1944: under Sir Henry Maitland, Supreme Commander, took over the whole Mediterranean theatre, moving from Cairo to Algiers but forced to retire by ill-health. 1946: C.B.E. Married, 1929, Hilda Francesca, daughter of the late Sir Nevile Lubbock, K.C.M.G., who survived him. They had no children. Obituaries: The Times, 16 Nov. 1954; Cambridge Review (by B. H. G. Wormald) 27 Nov. 1954; Cambridge Daily News, 16 Nov. 1954; The Sex, no. 114 (June 1956) 1-4, by Herbert Butterfield.