Nicolson, Sir Harold George 1886-1968
English diplomat, writer and critic

He was born in Teheran, where his father (later 1st Baron Carnock) was British charg� d'affaires, and educated at Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. He had a distinguished career as a diplomat, entering the service in 1909, and holding posts in Madrid, Constantinople (Istanbul), Teheran and Berlin until his resignation in 1929, when he turned to journalism. From 1935 to 1945 he was National Liberal MP for West Leicester. He wrote several biographies, for example those of Tennyson, Algernon Swinburne and the official one of George V, as well as books on history, politics and, in Good Behaviour (1955), manners. He was highly regarded as a literary critic. He was married to Victoria Sackville-West.