Dates
- Creation: 1927-91
Creator
Biographical / Historical
Valentine George Lawford was born in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire on 27 February 1911, the son of Captain Vincent Adrian Lawford and Agnes Jane (née Mapplebeck). He was educated at Repton School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He lived with his partner, the photographer Horst P. Horst, and they had one adopted son.
He joined the Foreign Office, in 1934, and his first overseas posting was as Third Secretary of the British Embassy in Paris, 1937-9. On his return to London in 1939, he became assistant private secretary to the Foreign Secretary working for Lord Halifax, Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, including attending many of the wartime conferences and acting as Winston Churchill's interpreter during meetings with Charles de Gaulle. After the war, he was appointed to the UK delegation to the newly established United Nations in New York, 1946-9, and then political counsellor in the British Embassy in Tehran [Iran], 1949-50. He resigned from the Foreign Office in 1950 and settled in the United States with his partner, Horst P. Horst, at their home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and pursued a career as a writer and painter.
He died in North Shore Hospital on 17 June 1991.
His publications include his memoir, 'Bound for Diplomacy' (1963) and his biography of Horst, 'Horst: His Work and His World' (1984).
Extent
7 archive box(es)
Language of Materials
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was given to Churchill Archives Centre by Charles Tilbury, December 2014 (Acc 1842), with later accessions donated by Jeremy Lawford, May 2024 (Acc 2320), and Charles Tilbury (Acc 2404), May 2025.
General
The first accession to this collection (Acc 1842) was catalogued by Sophie Bridges, April 2015. Biographical information was obtained from Herry Lawford's blog and the papers themselves. Later accessions (Acc 2320 and 2404) were also catalogued by Sophie Bridges, October 2024 and June 2025, with further biographical information added from Jeremy Lawford's unpublished typescript 'Letters from Long Island' (LWFD 2/13).
Originator(s)
Lawford, Valentine George, 1911-91, diplomat and writer
- Date
- 2014-12-08 11:46:59+00:00
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Churchill Archives Centre Repository
Churchill Archives Centre
Churchill College
Cambridge Cambridgeshire CB3 0DS United Kingdom
+44 (0)1223 336087
archives@chu.cam.ac.uk