Sir Laurence Pumphrey: Ambassador to Pakistan

Sir Laurence Pumphrey was a former prisoner at Colditz who went on to become Ambassador to Pakistan from 1971 to 1976 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s turbulent leadership first as President, then as Prime Minister.

John Laurence Pumphrey, known as Laurie, was born in 1916, the fourth son and fifth child of Ernest Pumphrey and his wife, Iris. His mother’s personality, sharp wit and reputation as a hostess in Northumberland influenced all her children, but, on Laurie, his father’s Quaker background and quiet, strong character had a greater effect.

His family background set the pattern of his life. His heart was always in Northumberland; the Puritan in him responded to the austere beauty and loneliness of its moors and hills. A strong and clever boy, he did well at Winchester, went up to New College, Oxford, with a scholarship, and emerged with a first in Mods and Greats and a half-blue for crosscountry running. Academic life did not attract him, however.Coming down from Oxford he read for the Bar, but was interrupted by the Second World War. He went with the Northumberland Hussars to the Middle East, only to be captured in Crete and spend the next four years in prison camps — the last two in Colditz. He learnt Russian, and on his release in 1945 returned to marry Jean Buchanan-Riddell, a Northumbrian neighbour whom he had courted for seven years. Nearly 30 and married, making a living at the Bar seemed remote and he entered the Foreign Office through the postwar reconstruction examination.

His start there was auspicious and successive postings as Assistant Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Orme Sargent, and then at 10 Downing Street to Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister, carried the hallmark of future success.

By 1955 he had been promoted to Counsellor as head of Establishment and Organisation. But in 1956-1957 an event was to change the course of his career. Soon after the Suez crisis, he met, on a train, a young cousin, then a secretary in Conservative Central Office, who told him that the latest change in Bank rate had been widely known in her office before it was announced. Pumphrey concluded that this was proof of government malpractice. But, aware that those who had questioned Suez’s legitimacy through the proper channels had achieved nothing, he reported the matter not to his superiors but to the Labour Opposition and the matter was duly raised in Parliament. A tribunal set up to investigate concluded that the allegation was unfounded.

It was a very public humiliation. But there were no recriminations and Pumphrey went quietly on in his department. Thereafter, the appointments of someone publicly branded as irresponsible were bound to be under scrutiny and his chances of an early independent command greatly reduced. However, in 1960 he went as Counsellor to the CommissionerGeneral’s Office in Singapore; in 1963 he was appointed CMG and moved to Belgrade at No 2; and in 1965 he was appointed Deputy High Commissioner to Kenya.

In 1967 he was promoted as High Commissioner in Zambia and in 1971 he was again promoted, this time to be Ambassador to Pakistan. The opportunities for travel, often arduous, suited his tastes and temperament; he was stimulated in his contact with President Bhutto; regretted his fall; and was shocked and saddened, but not surprised, by his eventual execution.

He was appointed KCMG in 1973 and retired in 1976.

Pumphrey was always honest and direct with little taste for “flannel”. Intellectual speculation was never much to his taste.

But his judgment and control over strong emotions and a sensitive nature were, with one disastrous exception, firm and balanced. He was a hard worker who sought to master his job and its problems, a pragmatist and a sceptical realist.

He is survived by his wife Jean and by four sons and a daughter.

Sir Laurence Pumphrey, KCMG, diplomat, was born on July 22, 1916. He died on December 23, 2009, aged 93