Gilbert Laithwaite

Sir (John) Gilbert Laithwaite GCMG KCB KCIE CSI (5 July 1894 – 21 December 1986) was an Irish-British civil servant and diplomat.

Gilbert Laithwaite was the eldest of two sons and two daughters, born in Dublin. His father was John Laithwaite of the Post Office survey. His mother was Mary Kearney whose family hailed from Castlerea, Co. Roscommon. Laithwaite was a first cousin of the Irish Republican leader Ernie O'Malley.

Laithwaite went to Clongowes Wood College, where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford, going on to achieve a second class degree. He received an honorary fellowship from that college in 1955.

In the First world war, Laithwaite served in the British army in France as a second lieutenant with the 10th Lancashire Fusiliers. He was wounded in 1918. In 1971 he published an account of part of his war experience entitled 21 March 1918: Memories of an Infantry Officer.

Following the war Laithwaite joined the India Office. In 1931 he was attached to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald for the second Indian round-table conference in London.

Work in India followed, on Lord Lothian's Franchise committee, which extended the Indian franchise to 35 million voters. From 1936 to 1943 he was principal private secretary to the Viceroy of India, the second marquess of Linlithgow.

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