Philip Woodfield

Sir Philip John Woodfield,

Life and career

Woodfield was born in Dulwich, south-east London, and attended Alleyn's School, Dulwich. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1942, rising to become a captain before leaving the Army in 1947. He read English at King's College London. He then joined the Home Office in 1950 and became Assistant Private Secretary to the Secretary of State, Viscount Kilmuir. In 1955, he was seconded for two years to the Federal Government of Nigeria, to assist in the preparations for that country's independence.

In 1961 he became Private Secretary dealing with parliamentary and home affairs, in which function he served three prime ministers: Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson. He returned to the Home Office in 1965 as an Assistant Secretary, and he was appointed secretary to Commonwealth Immigration Commission, which was headed by Admiral-of-the-Fleet Lord Mountbatten. When Mountbatten later undertook an inquiry into prison security, following a number of highly publicized escapes from jail, he asked that Woodfield be assigned to it as its secretary. Woodfield was then promoted to be Under-Secretary in the Prison Department of the Home Office, charged with the responsibility of implementing the recommendations of the commission that had been accepted by the Secretary of State, Roy Jenkins.

Woodfield was promoted to Deputy Secretary in charge of the Northern Ireland Department of the Home Office in 1972, which would soon become the Northern Ireland Office and was promoted to Permanent Under-Secretary of State in 1981.

In his role at the Northern Ireland Office Woodfield participated in what is now believed to have been the first meeting between the

Woodfield died in London on 17 September 2000.[3]

References