Rowland Sperling

Sir Rowland Arthur Charles Sperling KCMG CB (1874–1965) was a British diplomat.

Rowland Arthur Charles Sperling
British Ambassador to Switzerland
In office
1924–1928
Preceded byMilne Cheetham
British Ambassador to Bulgaria
In office
1928–1929
British Ambassador to Finland
In office
1930–1935
Personal details
Born(1874-01-04)4 January 1874
London, England
Died1 August 1965(1965-08-01) (aged 91)
EducationEton
Alma materMatriculated 14 October 1890
AwardsKCMG, CB

Early life

Sperling was born in 1874 in London, England the son of Commander Rowland Money Sperling (1841–), RN,[1] and Marian Charlotte daughter of Charles Keyser and Margaret Blore. He was educated at Eton College and New College Oxford in 1892.[2] He left New College in 1899 before gaining a degree to work as a clerk in the Foreign Office.[2]

Diplomat

He was sent to Russia in 1902 to learn Russian before becoming acting third secretary in St Petersburg in the Diplomatic Service. He returned to the Foreign Office in 1905 first as an assistant clerk, then a senior clerk and in 1914 Head of the Western Department.[2] He stayed in the Foreign Office during the first world war and was an attached to the Paris Peace Conference : assistant secretary Foreign Office 1919.[3] In 1920 he represented the United Kingdom at a conference on international communications in Washington. By 1924 he was transferred to the Diplomatic Service and he was appointed Minister at Berne, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Switzerland 1924–28.[4][2][5] In 1928 he moved as Minister to Sofia, Bulgaria 1928–9, and then to Finland 1930–35.[2][6] He retired from the service in 1935.[2]

Family life

Sperling had married Dorothy Constance Kingsmill (1874–1951), daughter of William Howley Kingsmill (1838–1894),[7] DL, JP, of Sydmonton Court, Sydmonton, and Constance Mary Portal (died 1947),[8], in 1905 and they had two sons and a daughter.[2] One son was killed on active service in a flying accident at Manston Airport in March 1940.[2] His wife died in 1951.[2] One of his wife's first cousins was Sir Wyndham Raymond Portal, 3rd Bart., 1st Viscount Portal, GCMG, MVO, DSO, PC.

Following retirement to Kingsclere's Knowl Hill (telephone 357), in Hampshire, new Newbury, from 1936 to 1949 he was a member of Hampshire County Council and in 1945–1946 Sperling was High Sheriff of Hampshire.[2] He was a member of the Travellers' club.[9]

Sperling died on 8 January 1965 at his home in Wiltshire aged 91.[2]

Children:

  • Michael Rowland Sperling, (1908–), married, 1940, Pamela Margaret Farley;
Marian Claire Sperling, (1949–);
Veronica Anne Sperling, (1951–);
  • Philip Rowland Sperling, (1911 + 1940), killed on active service;
  • Elizabeth Sperling, (1906–), married, 1933, Claude Scudamore Emery (1895–1981).[10]

Honours and awards
gollark: Asking for assistance on eggs, I mean.
gollark: Isn't it opt-in?
gollark: ... not really, I think.
gollark: Nope, that failed.
gollark: I can breed one now, I think.

References
  1. Son of Charles Robert Sperling (1798–1863).
  2. "Sir Rowland Sperling". The Times (56215). London. 9 January 1965. p. 12.
  3. Kelly's Handbook, 1938.
  4. Kelly's Handbook, 1938.
  5. Grossbritannien/Botschaft in Bern in the Dodis database of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland
  6. C. Cook, P. Jones, J. Sinclair, Jeffrey Weeks, Sources in British Political History, 1900–1951, p. 228, Ray Jones, The nineteenth-century Foreign Office: an administrative history, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1971 – 224 pp., p. 183
  7. She was descended from the Archbishop of Canterbury William Howley.
  8. Constance Mary Portal was daughter of Sir Wyndham Spencer Portal, 1st Bt., they married on 26 April 1871.
  9. Kelly's Handbook, 1938.
  10. served in the Estonian Defense Forces, pilot-instructor from 1 April 1919 to 31 December 1926 (see Estonian Wikipedia).
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