Gai Eaton
| Charles le Gai Eaton | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
1 January 1921 Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland |
| Died | 26 February 2010 (aged 89) |
| Occupation | Academic, writer and diplomat |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Charterhouse School |
| Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge |
| Period | 1949–2009 |
| Subject | Islam |
| Literary movement | Sufism |
| Notable works |
King of the Castle: Choice and Responsibility in the Modern World (1977) Islam and the Destiny of Man (1994) Remembering God: Reflections on Islam (2000) |
| Spouse |
Kay Clayton (m. 1944; div. 1950) Corah Hamilton (m. 1956; d. 1984) |
| Children | Leo Eaton (b. 1945) 3 from second marriage |
| Relatives | J. E. Preston Muddock (grandfather) |
Charles le Gai Eaton (also known as Hasan le Gai Eaton or Hassan Abdul Hakeem; 1 January 1921 – 26 February 2010) was a British diplomat, writer and Sufist Islamic scholar.
Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in London under the name Gai, Eaton was the son of the married Francis Errington and his mistress, Ruth; to hide her son's illegitimacy, Ruth claimed that she had been married to a Canadian, Charles Eaton (an invention of Errington's, by then supposedly deceased), and that Charles had fathered the child. Eaton knew Errington only as a friend of the family until the age of 16, when his mother revealed the truth of his parentage. Brought up agnostic, Eaton was educated at Charterhouse School and King's College, Cambridge, where he studied history and entered into a correspondence with the novelist Leo Myers.
Having been passed over for military service during the Second World War, in the late 1940s and early 1950s he worked as a lecturer, teacher and newspaper editor in Egypt (at Cairo University) and Jamaica, before joining the British Diplomatic Service in 1959. As a diplomat, Eaton's postings included the Colonial Office outpost in Jamaica and the Deputy High Commission office in Madras, India, as well as others in Trinidad and Ghana. Eaton returned to the UK permanently in 1974 and retired from his diplomatic career three years later.
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