Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
Frank Trelawny Arthur Ashton-Gwatkin
Ashton-Gwatkin was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford.[1]
In 1915 he married Nancy Violet Butler (d. 1953), of Melbourne, Australia.[citation needed]
After several years in the Consular Service in
He participated in several international conferences, including the
During the 1930s, Ashton-Gwatkin was a staunch advocate of the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. Although he later revised his views, Ashton-Gwatkin's political outlook at that time is encapsulated by his expressed hope - in the immediate aftermath of the Munich Agreement in 1938 - of “an Anglo-German policy of economic co-operation” flourishing within a German-dominated East Central Europe.[4]
Ashton-Gwatkin's literary work, published under the name of John Paris, reflected his period of residence in Japan and included the novels Kimono (1921), Sayonara (1924), Banzai! (1925), The Island beyond Japan (1929), Matsu (1932) and a collection of verses A Japanese Don Juan and other Poems (1926). The novels were noted for their realistic portrayal of life in East Asia. Previously, whilst an undergraduate at Oxford, he had been awarded the 1909 Newdigate Prize for a poem entitled Michelangelo.
References
- ^ a b c d "Mr. Frank Ashton-Gwatkin: A Notable Diplomat". The Times. 31 January 1976. p. 14.
- ^ Boadle, D.G. “The Formation of the Foreign Office Economic Relations Section”, Historical Journal, vol. 20, 1977, pp. 919-36.
- ^ Vyšný, Paul, The Runciman Mission to Czechoslovakia, 1938: Prelude to Munich, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2003, pp. 128-9, 324.
- ^ "Notes on Germany and Central Europe", memorandum by Ashton-Gwatkin, 27 October 1938, C 13864/772/18, FO371/21705, National Archives, London.
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