Esmond Ovey

Sir Esmond Ovey GCMG MVO (23 July 1879 – 30 May 1963) was a British diplomat who was ambassador to the Soviet Union, Belgium and Argentina.

Esmond Ovey was educated at Eton College and entered the Diplomatic Service as an attaché in 1902. He was appointed to Tangier but did not go there that year, instead being sent to to assist with extra work in the period preceding the Russo-Japanese War. He did go to Tangier in 1904, was promoted to Third Secretary in 1905 and posted to Paris in 1906. While at the Paris embassy he was decorated with the MVO when King Edward VII visited Biarritz in 1907. In 1908 he was posted to Washington, D.C. where he met, and in May 1909 married, Blanche, daughter of Rear-Admiral William H. Emory, United States Navy. In the same month he was promoted to Second Secretary.

In 1912 Ovey was transferred to Sofia and in 1913 to Constantinople. When the Ottoman Empire came into the First World War the British Ambassador, Sir Louis Mallet, left Constantinople with all his staff except Ovey, who was seriously ill with typhoid fever. "Luckily he was able to be moved to the American Embassy but Wangenheim, the German Ambassador, endeavoured to obtain Ovey's removal before he was sufficiently recovered. It was lucky that his wife was an American." Ovey was transferred to Norway where he remained for the rest of the war, acting as chargé d'affaires when the Minister was absent. He was promoted to First Secretary in 1916.

...
Wikipedia