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Eldest son of the first Baron Hankey, Robert (known as Robin) was born on 4 Jul 1905 at Croydon. He was married in 1930 to Frances Bevyl Stuart-Menteth (1907-1957), by whom he had two sons and two daughters:

 

 

He married secondly in 1962 Joanna Riddall (nee Wright, 1908-1991); and thirdly in 1992 Stephanie Langley (nee King). He died at his home at Cowden, near Edenbridge, on 28 Oct 1996, aged 91.

 

Lord Hankey. Diplomat who faced the Blitzkrieg in Warsaw, Nazis in Bucharest, turmoil in Teheran, crisis in Suez and cricket in Stockholm.

The 2nd Lord Hankey, who died aged 91, might have been bred to deal with crisis. Robert Maurice Alers Hankey was born on July 4 1905, the eldest son of Maurice Hankey, who as Cabinet Secretary from 1916 to 1938 was one of the most influential figures in Britain.

‘Without Hankey,’ Arthur Balfour remarked after the First World War, ‘we should never have won.’ Field Marshal Henry Jumbo Wilson warned: ‘If you once lose hold of Hankey-Pankey, you are done, absolutely done.’ Maurice Hankey was knighted in 1916 and created a baron as Lord Hankey in 1939. During the Second World War he served in the cabinet.

His son, Robin Hankey, was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, and joined the Foreign Office in 1927. Hankey made a point of starting every day en poste with a language lesson; in this way he became proficient not only in German and French, but also in Italian, Polish, Romanian, Persian and Arabic.

Hankey began as Third Secretary in Berlin and Paris, and was then appointed assistant private secretary to Anthony Eden, who became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1935. The next year Hankey was sent as Second Secretary to Warsaw.

He was still there in September 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. Hankey was one of the first Englishmen to hear this news, for in the Warsaw embassy he took the call from the British Consul at Katowice, who had rung to say that the Germans were bombing the town.

Hankey himself experienced both bombing and machine-gunning as the Blitzkrieg closed in on Warsaw, but managed to escape unharmed to Romania. Having arrived in Bucharest he was duly attached to the embassy.

Romania, vital to both sides because of its oil, at first attempted to adopt a policy of neutrality; in fact early in 1940 it was exporting more oil to Britain than to Germany. But after Hitler’s triumphs in the West the pro-German forces in the country gathered force.

The Nazi Iron Guard sought to seize control, and there was street fighting in Bucharest. As a representative of Britain Hankey was a particular bete noir to the Iron Guard, and by late 1941, when Britain formally declared war on Romania, he featured on that organisation’s death list.

Hankey again got away safely. He went to Teheran, then a hotbed of Axis espionage and intrigue. He proved extremely popular, not least with the young Shah, whom he taught to ski. He was still in Teheran in November 1943, when Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met there to plan the invasion of Germany.

On his return from the Middle East Hankey found himself stranded for a week in Lagos. He showed his versatility by learning to surf, tuning the Governor’s piano, making a detailed report of the Nigerian fiscal system, and (being without his breeches) riding through the bush clad in pyjamas and three pairs of bathing trunks.

Back in London he continued to work on the Middle East, and then in July 1945 returned briefly to Warsaw, pending the arrival of Victor Cavendish-Bentinck as ambassador.

It thus fell to his lot to receive a report by the Polish Red Cross, which had examined the mass graves at Katyn Forest and concluded that the corpses had been killed in 1940, when the region was under Soviet control. But as the Russians were still - just - our gallant allies, the report was kept secret.

Hankey was next head of the Northern Department in London until November 1949, when he was appointed charge d’affaires in Madrid. Anglo-Spanish relations were fraught owing to the government’s hostility to Franco’s regime, and the British had withdrawn full diplomatic representation. Hankey was soon enmeshed in a dreary dispute over the right to land tomatoes in Spain from the Canary Islands.

After a brief spell as Minister in Budapest in 1951, Hankey again encountered trouble in 1952 when his appointment as ambassador to Iran was announced. In the previous year Mossadeq’s nationalist government had ordered British oil workers to leave the country; it followed this up by renouncing a treaty of friendship with Britain that had endured since 1857.

Iran refused to accept Hankey as ambassador, stating that as someone concerned with Anglo-Persian relations during ‘the colonial phase’ he must entertain ‘sentiments of enmity’ towards the present regime. No doubt the real reason was Hankey’s friendship with the Shah.

Balked in Iran Hankey was sent to Cairo, to take charge of the embassy during Sir Ralph Stevenson’s sick leave. This was another troublespot, for General Nagib, who (along with Colonel Nasser) had siezed control of the government the previous year, was demanding the evacuation of the British from the Suez Canal zone.

‘Hankey is Churchill’s stooge, a master of intrigue and espionage,’ announced the newspaper Al Akhbar. In this atmosphere, Hankey could do little more than talk about talks, and protest about attacks on British soldiers.

By contrast, in Stockholm, where he went as ambassador in 1954, Hankey faced few dramas more testing than the organisation of a visit by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in June 1956, the investigation of a robbery of jewels from the embassy, and the uncertain fortunes of the Stockholm Cricket Club.

In 1960, Hankey became permanent United Kingdom representative to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, and chairman of the Economic Policy Committee. Later he was vice president of the European Institute of Business Administration, Fontainebleu, a member of both the International Council of United World Colleges, and the Council of the International Baccalaureat Foundation, Geneva. At home he was a Director of the Alliance Building Society, and President of Anglo-Swedish Society.

Having succeeded his father in the barony in 1963, Hankey attended the Lords regularly and occasionally spoke from the cross-benches. But he provoked liberal outrage in 1989 when he reflected that, while he was not suggesting that children should be treated like dogs, ‘if one were never able to beat one’s dog, it would often make an awful mess around the house’.

Hankey was appointed CMG in 1947, KCMG in 1955, and KCVO in 1956.

He was married first, in 1930, to Bevyl Stuart-Menteth, who died in 1957; they had two sons and two daughters. He married secondly, in 1962, Joanna Wright, who died in 1991, and thirdly, in 1992 Stephanie Langley (nee King).

 

His son, Donald Hankey, born in 1938, succeeds as 3rd Baron.

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