Sir Donald Hawley KCMG, MBE

Donald Frederick Hawley was born in Thorpe Bay, Essex in 1921. He was educated at Radley and New College, Oxford, where he was awarded a War Degree in Law in 1941. Later that same year he sailed for the Sudan where he saw three years of military service on secondment to the Sudan Defence Force. In 1944 he was recalled to the Sudan Political Service where he served as Assistant District Commissioner at Kosti, Blue Nile Province (1944-46) and at Gedaref, Kassala Province (1946-47). He joined the Sudan Judiciary in 1947, firstly as Police Magistrate, Khartoum (1947) , then Deputy Assistant Legal Secretary, Lands (1947-51) and Chief Registrar of the Judiciary (1952-55). He was called to the Bar, Inner Temple in 1951.

With Sudanese independence in 1956, Donald Hawley joined the Foreign Office. His first appointment was with the Levant Department, with responsibility for Jordan, transferring later that year to the Permanent Undersecretary's Department. He later served with distinction in a variety of posts in the Middle East, Africa and the Far East, firstly as Political Agent, Trucial States (1958-61), and thereafter as Head of Chancery, British Embassy, Cairo (1962-64), Counsellor and Head of Chancery, British High Commission, Lagos (1965-67), Counsellor (Commercial), Baghdad (1968-71), Consul-General, Muscat (1971) and H.M. Ambassador to Oman (1971-75). From 1975 to 1977 Donald Hawley was Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office during which time he led a mission to Uganda and visited India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to report on immigration. His final overseas posting was as British High Commissioner in Malaysia (1977-81).

He was awarded an MBE in 1955, and appointed CMG (1970) and KCMG (1978).

After retirement from H.M. Diplomatic Service, Sir Donald took up a number of directorships and consultancies, notably with the Ewbank Preece Group, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Centre for British Teachers. He served on the Council of the University of Reading from 1981 to 1994, latterly as President and was involved with the University of Durham (where he was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Geography in 1967) through support for the Sudan Archive and membership of the Sir William Luce Memorial Fund committee. He was awarded an Honorary DLitt by the University of Reading in 1994 and an Honorary DCL by the University of Durham in 1997. He has continued to travel widely, particularly in the Middle and Far East, and has maintained his interest in those countries where he served by membership of such bodies as the Sudan Government British Pensioners' Association, the Sudan Defence Force Dinner Club, the Anglo-Omani Society and the British Malaysian Society.

Donald Hawley married Ruth Morwenna Howes in 1964. They had four children. He died in 2008.

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Related Material

The collection includes a considerable amount of related printed material including many imprints from countries in which D.F.H. served. A complete set of D.F.H.'s own publications is stored with the papers (see list below), but duplicate copies of many of these are available on open access in the library. The remaining printed items are still to be catalogued. Most monographs will eventually join the library's stock while material of a more ephemeral nature (pamphlets, newspapers, etc) will form a separate closed access sequence and be stored with the papers. Material catalogued with the Library's printed books can be found by a shelfmark search http://library.dur.ac.uk/search/?searchtype=c&searcharg=Hawley&searchscope=1

D.F.H.'s publications