Sir Harold Nicolson KCVO CMG |
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Member of Parliament for Leicester West |
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In office 14 November 1935 – 5 July 1945 |
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Preceded by | Ernest Harold Pickering |
Succeeded by | Barnett Janner |
Personal details | |
Born |
Harold George Nicolson 21 November 1886 Tehran, Persian Empire |
Died | 1 May 1968 Sissinghurst Castle, Kent |
(aged 81)
Nationality | British |
Political party | National Labour and Labour Party |
Spouse(s) | Vita Sackville-West |
Children | Nigel Nicolson, Benedict Nicolson |
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Occupation | British diplomat, author, diarist and politician |
Sir Harold George Nicolson KCVO CMG (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British diplomat, author, diarist and politician.
He was the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West.
Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of diplomat Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He was educated at Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford.
In 1909 Nicolson joined HM Diplomatic Service. He served as attaché at Madrid from February to September 1911, and then Third Secretary at Constantinople from January 1912 to October 1914. During the First World War, he served at the Foreign Office in London, during which time he was promoted Second Secretary. As the Foreign Office's most junior employee at this rank, it fell to him in August 1914 to hand Britain's revised declaration of war to the German ambassador in London. He served in a junior capacity in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, for which he was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours.
Promoted First Secretary in 1920, he was appointed private secretary to Sir Eric Drummond, first Secretary-General of the League of Nations, but was recalled to the Foreign Office in June 1920.