Jeremy Richard Lovering Grosvenor Varcoe (born 20 September 1937) is a former British diplomat, who also served as an Immigration Tribunal Appeal judge.

Education

Jeremy Varcoe was educated at

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

in Surrey, and at

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, t ...

. He served in

HM Forces The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, su ...

1956-58 and in HMOCS (

Swaziland Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...

) 1962–65. He was called to the

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (un ...

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wa ...

in 1966.

Diplomatic career

Jeremy Varcoe joined the FCO as First Secretary in 1970. He was seconded as Deputy Secretary-General to the

Pearce Commission The Commission on Rhodesian Opinion, also known as the Pearce Commission, was a British commission set up in 1971 by Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home to test the acceptability of a proposed constitutional settlement in Rhodes ...

on Rhodesian Opinion in 1972. Later that year, he was posted to

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, mak ...

. In 1974, he was posted to

Lusaka Lusaka (; ) is the capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was about 3.3 milli ...

Head of Chancery A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

, returning to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1978. He was appointed Counsellor at

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

in 1979. Jeremy Varcoe was appointed Head of the FCO's Southern African Department in 1982. Following the

Coventry Four Four South African alleged arms smugglers were arrested by HM Customs & Excise officers in Coventry in March 1984 and charged with conspiring to export arms from Britain to apartheid South Africa in contravention of the mandatory United Nations a ...

affair in March 1984, he was sent as Counsellor to Ankara. Varcoe was seconded to

Standard Chartered Bank Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 9 ...

in 1985. Subsequently, Jeremy Varcoe was appointed Ambassador to

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...

in 1987. He coordinated the

17th G8 summit The 17th G7 Summit was held in London, England, United Kingdom between 15 and 17 July 1991. The venue for the summit meetings was Lancaster House in London.Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( MOFA) Summit Meetings in the Past./ref> The Group o ...

Lancaster House Lancaster House (originally known as York House and then Stafford House) is a mansion in the St James's district in the West End of London. It is close to St James's Palace, and much of the site was once part of the palace complex. This ...

in 1991, and later served as Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the FCO until he retired in 1997.

Post retirement

In 2004, Jeremy Varcoe was one of 50 former ambassadors who signed a letter to

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of the ...

urging him to distance Britain from US policy in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. He became an Immigration Appeals Tribunal judge in 1998 but was forced to retire in 2007 at the age of 70. Varcoe then sued the Ministry of Justice for discriminating against him on account of his age.

Family

He married Wendy Anne Moss in 1961. They had two daughters (1964 and 1966).

References

External links

Jeremy Varcoe's links to the "Lovering Dry Clay" at Pochin House

Jeremy Varcoe on Facebook
{{DEFAULTSORT:Varcoe, Jeremy 1937 births Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford 20th-century English judges Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Living people Members of HM Diplomatic Service People educated at Charterhouse School Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Somalia 20th-century British diplomats 21st-century English judges