19 Facts About Ivone Kirkpatrick

Ivone Kirkpatrick's father was a descendant of a Scottish family that settled in Ireland during the eighteenth century.

Ivone Kirkpatrick volunteered for active service on the outbreak of the First World War and was commissioned in November 1914 in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Ivone Kirkpatrick was firstly posted to Brazil for one year, returning to London in August 1920 to take up a post in the Western Department of the Foreign Office.

Ivone Kirkpatrick was promoted second secretary in December 1920 and first secretary in October 1928.

In September 1944 Kirkpatrick was appointed to organize the British element of the Allied Control Commission for Germany, and following the end of the war he served at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force as British political adviser to US General Dwight D Eisenhower until that organization's disbandment.

In June 1950, Ivone Kirkpatrick was appointed by King George VI as British High Commissioner for Germany.

In November 1953, Ivone Kirkpatrick was brought back to London to succeed Sir William Strang as Permanent Under-Secretary.

One of the things that Ivone Kirkpatrick is most famous for during this time, was his January 1953 decision ordering the arrest of what he described as a "high-level cabal of neo-Nazis intent on undermining German democracy".

Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick succeeded Sir William Strang as Permanent Under-Secretary in 1953.

Ivone Kirkpatrick was related to a former PUS, his mother being first cousin to Charles Hardinge.

Ivone Kirkpatrick joined the Office in February 1919 after spending the previous three years in wartime intelligence and propaganda work, an activity to which he returned when in 1941 he became foreign adviser to the BBC.

Ivone Kirkpatrick's views seem not to have made any great impression on the British Ambassador, Sir Neville Henderson.

Ivone Kirkpatrick had a reputation as a combative, even aggressive, Irishman, who had little time for discussion.

Ivone Kirkpatrick was not, according to some of his former colleagues, the easiest of men to work with, and in Lord Gladwyn's opinion he would have made 'an excellent general'.

For Ivone Kirkpatrick, the Suez debacle was a test of Britain's great power status, leading him later to reflect that:.

Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh said of Ivone Kirkpatrick: "He was so sharp that he cut".

Ivone Kirkpatrick was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1939, Knight Commander in 1948, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1951, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1953, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1956.

Ivone Kirkpatrick died at his home, Donacomper, Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, on 25 May 1964.

Ivone Kirkpatrick was survived by his wife and two children.