John Redcliffe-Maud, Baron Redcliffe-Maud

The Right Honourable The Lord Redcliffe-Maud GCB CBE
Portrait of John Redcliffe-Maud.
Personal details
Born	John Primatt Redcliffe Maud (1906-02-03)3 February 1906 Bristol, England
Died	20 November 1982(1982-11-20) (aged 76) Oxford, England
Resting place	Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	civil servant

John Primatt Redcliffe-Maud, Baron Redcliffe-Maud GCB CBE (3 February 1906 – 20 November 1982) was a British civil servant and diplomat.

Born in Bristol, Maud was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford. He gained a Second in Classical Moderations in 1928 and a First in Literae Humaniores ('Greats') in 1928. At Oxford he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS). In 1928, he gained the one-year Henry P. Davison scholarship to Harvard University where he was awarded an A.B. in 1929. From 1929 to 1932 he was a Junior Research Fellow University College, Oxford and from 1932-39 Fellow (Praelector in Politics) and Dean of the college. He was awarded a Rhodes Travelling Scholarship to Africa in 1932 and held a University Lectureship in Politics at Oxford University, 1938-9.

During World War II, he was Master of Birkbeck College and was also based at Reading Gaol, working for the Ministry of Food. He became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1942, and after the war, he worked at the Ministry of Education (1945–1952), rising to Permanent Secretary and then the Ministry of Fuel and Power until 1958. He became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1946, and was raised to a Knight Grand Cross in 1955.Inter alia, Maud appeared on the BBC programme The Brains Trust in 1958. He was High Commissioner to the Union of South Africa from 1959 to 1961, and Ambassador from 1961, when the country became a republic and left the Commonwealth. In 1963, he became Master of University College, Oxford, where he had been a Fellow before the Second World War.