John Horace Ragnar Colvin
Encyclopedia
John Horace Ragnar Colvin, CMG
, (Tokyo
, Japan
June 18, 1922 - London
, October 4, 2003) was a British sailor, intelligence officer, banker and military historian.
had a long history of service to Queen and country (and British Empire
), both in the military and administration. John Horace Ragnar Colvin was the son of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin
, KBE
, CB
; the grandson of Clement Sneyd Colvin; and the great-grandson of John Russell Colvin
, lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, who had ten children and founded a dynasty of Empire-builders. Relatives included Walter Mytton
and Auckland, also lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. Brenda Colvin
(1897-1981) was an important landscape architect, author of standard works in the field and a force behind its professionalisation. Sidney Colvin
was a critic, curator, and great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson
.
Colvin married twice. His first marriage was to Anne Manifold in 1948, which ended in 1963. His second was to Moranna Cazenove in 1967. Each marriage produced a daughter and a son.
His former wife Anne later married Admiral
Sir Anthony Monckton Synnot
, KBE AO
Royal Australian Navy
(5 January 1922 - 4 July 2001), Chief of the Defence Force Staff
between 1979 and 1982. She became Lady Synnot.
One of Colvin's children (with Anne) is Mark Colvin
, an Australian journalist.
in the early part of the Second World War.
During the War he served mostly in the Far East
. Among other exploits, he joined combined operations in Colombo
, and served behind Japanese lines in Vietnam
. He emerged from undercover work to accept the surrender of the Japanese command in Saigon on Japan's capitulation, and remained in the South Vietnamese capital for a year.
After leaving the Royal Navy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, Colvin studied at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies
(SSEES) in London and joined the Secret Intelligence Service
. He was posted to a number of Cold War
hotspots including Oslo
, Vienna
and Kuala Lumpur
. His most high-profile postings, however, were Consul-General in Hanoi
from 1966-67 at the height of the American bombing campaign in the Vietnam War
; HM Ambassador to Outer Mongolia
from 1971-74; and head of the SIS station in Washington
1977-1980. He was appointed CMG in 1968 following his return from Hanoi.
On retirement from SIS, Colvin advised David Rockefeller
for eight years in Hong Kong
as a vice-president of the Chase Manhattan Bank
. He retired to London in 1988 and wrote several well-regarded books of mostly military history. His best-selling works were Not Ordinary Men, which examined the Battle of Kohima
, and Decisive Battles, which looked at twenty crucial battles throughout history. He also published a memoir of his time in Hanoi and Ulan Bator called Twice Around the World.
John Colvin was an active member of several of London's gentlemen's clubs, the St James's Club
, Brooks's
, White's
, the Beefsteak
, as well as, latterly, the Academy Club.
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
, (Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
June 18, 1922 - London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, October 4, 2003) was a British sailor, intelligence officer, banker and military historian.
Family
The Colvin familyColvin family
The Colvin family, for the purposes of this article, are that group of people descended from James Colvin , a merchant trading between London and Calcutta during the East India Company. This Anglo-Indian family was intimately involved with the British Raj, first as traders and then as...
had a long history of service to Queen and country (and British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
), both in the military and administration. John Horace Ragnar Colvin was the son of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin
Ragnar Colvin
Admiral Sir Ragnar Musgrave Colvin KBE, CB was a long-serving British naval officer who commanded the Royal Australian Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War.-Early life and background:...
, KBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
; the grandson of Clement Sneyd Colvin; and the great-grandson of John Russell Colvin
John Russell Colvin
John Russell Colvin, Esq. was a British civil servant in India, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He was lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, at the height of which he died.-Life:Colvin's was an Anglo-Indian family of...
, lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, who had ten children and founded a dynasty of Empire-builders. Relatives included Walter Mytton
Walter Mytton Colvin
Sir Walter Mytton Colvin was a British lawyer and colonial administrator, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family....
and Auckland, also lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. Brenda Colvin
Brenda Colvin
Brenda Colvin CBE was an important British landscape architect, author of standard works in the field and a force behind its professionalisation. She was part of the Colvin family, which had long ties to the British Raj. She was born in India where her father, Sir Elliot Graham Colvin, was a...
(1897-1981) was an important landscape architect, author of standard works in the field and a force behind its professionalisation. Sidney Colvin
Sidney Colvin
Sidney Colvin was an English curator and literary and art critic, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He is primarily remembered for his friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson.-Biography:...
was a critic, curator, and great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
.
Colvin married twice. His first marriage was to Anne Manifold in 1948, which ended in 1963. His second was to Moranna Cazenove in 1967. Each marriage produced a daughter and a son.
His former wife Anne later married Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Sir Anthony Monckton Synnot
Anthony Synnot
Admiral Sir Anthony Monckton Synnot KBE, AO was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy, who between 1979 and 1982 served as Chief of the Defence Force Staff.-Early life:...
, KBE AO
AO
-Science and technology:* .ao, top-level Internet domain code for Angola* Adaptive optics, an astronomical imaging technology* Arctic oscillation, a climate pattern* The AMSAT-OSCAR satellite naming convention...
Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
(5 January 1922 - 4 July 2001), Chief of the Defence Force Staff
Chief of the Defence Force (Australia)
Chief of the Defence Force is the most senior appointment in the Australian Defence Force . The CDF commands the ADF under the direction of the Minister of Defence, in a coequal arrangement with the Secretary of Defence, the most senior public servant in the Department of Defence.The position is a...
between 1979 and 1982. She became Lady Synnot.
One of Colvin's children (with Anne) is Mark Colvin
Mark Colvin
Mark Colvin is an Australian journalist and broadcaster. Based in Sydney, he is the presenter of PM since 1997. PM is one of the flagship Australian radio current affairs programs on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network.-Family:...
, an Australian journalist.
Life
He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and passed into the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in the early part of the Second World War.
During the War he served mostly in the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
. Among other exploits, he joined combined operations in Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, and served behind Japanese lines in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. He emerged from undercover work to accept the surrender of the Japanese command in Saigon on Japan's capitulation, and remained in the South Vietnamese capital for a year.
After leaving the Royal Navy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, Colvin studied at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies is a school of University College London . It is the largest centre for the study and research of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and Russia in the United Kingdom...
(SSEES) in London and joined the Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
. He was posted to a number of Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
hotspots including Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
. His most high-profile postings, however, were Consul-General in Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
from 1966-67 at the height of the American bombing campaign in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
; HM Ambassador to Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia was a territory of the Qing Dynasty = the Manchu Empire. Its area was roughly equivalent to that of the modern state of Mongolia, which is sometimes informally called "Outer Mongolia" today...
from 1971-74; and head of the SIS station in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
1977-1980. He was appointed CMG in 1968 following his return from Hanoi.
On retirement from SIS, Colvin advised David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller, Sr. is the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. He is the youngest and only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and the only surviving grandchild of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil. His five siblings were...
for eight years in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
as a vice-president of the Chase Manhattan Bank
Chase Manhattan Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase, is a national bank that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of financial services firm JPMorgan Chase. The bank was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until it merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2000...
. He retired to London in 1988 and wrote several well-regarded books of mostly military history. His best-selling works were Not Ordinary Men, which examined the Battle of Kohima
Battle of Kohima
The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive into India in 1944 in the Second World War. The battle was fought from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima in northeast India. It is often referred to as the "Stalingrad of the East".The battle took place in...
, and Decisive Battles, which looked at twenty crucial battles throughout history. He also published a memoir of his time in Hanoi and Ulan Bator called Twice Around the World.
John Colvin was an active member of several of London's gentlemen's clubs, the St James's Club
St James's Club
The St James's Club was a London gentlemen's club which operated between 1857 and 1978.-Foundation:The club was founded in 1857 by the Liberal statesman the second Earl Granville and by the Marchese d'Azeglio, Minister of Sardinia to the Court of St. James's, after a dispute at the Travellers' Club...
, Brooks's
Brooks's
Brooks's is one of London's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs, founded in 1764 by 27 men, including four dukes. From its inception, it was the meeting place for Whigs of the highest social order....
, White's
White's
White's is a London gentlemen's club, established at 4 Chesterfield Street in 1693 by Italian immigrant Francesco Bianco . Originally it was established to sell hot chocolate, a rare and expensive commodity at the time...
, the Beefsteak
Beefsteak Club
Beefsteak Club is the name, nickname and historically common misnomer applied by sources to several 18th and 19th century male dining clubs that celebrated the beefsteak as a symbol of patriotic and often Whig concepts of liberty and prosperity....
, as well as, latterly, the Academy Club.