Preceded by Sir Horace Seymour Name Reader Bullard Nationality British Role Diplomat | Children 5 (4 sons, 1 daughter) Succeeded by John Le Rougetel Occupation Diplomat and author | |
Born 5 December 1885Walthamstow, Essex, England ( 1885-12-05 ) Spouse(s) Miriam Catherine Smith (m.1921) Books Two Kings in Arabia: Letters from Jeddah, 1923-5 and 1936-9 Parents Charles W. Bullard, Mary Westlake | ||
Sir Reader William Bullard (5 December 1885 – 24 May 1976) was a British diplomat and author.
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Education
Reader Bullard was born in Walthamstow, the son of Charles, a dock labourer, and Mary Bullard. He was educated at the Bancroft's School, Woodford Green, northeast London, and spent two years studying at Queens' College, Cambridge. He entered the Levant (Western Asia) Consular Service of the Foreign Office in 1906.
Career
Bullard held various diplomatic positions during his career:
In Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean describes how Bullard and General Joseph Baillon, the Chief of Staff, requested him to kidnap a powerful Persian. They were concerned about the influence of Fazlollah Zahedi, the general in charge of the Persian forces in the Isfahan area, who, their intelligence told them, was stockpiling grain, liaising with German agents, and preparing an uprising. Baillon and Bullard asked Maclean to remove Zahidi alive and without creating a fuss, and so he did so. (Zahedi spent the rest of the war in British Palestine; five years later he was back in charge of the military of southern Persia, by 1953 he was prime minister.)
In 1951, Bullard became Director of the Institute of Colonial Studies in Oxford. In 1953, he became a member of the governing body of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Bullard was appointed Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1916, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1933, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1936, and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1944. He was an Honorary Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, SOAS in London, and Lincoln College, Oxford.
Personal life
In 1921, Reader Bullard married Miriam Catherine (Biddy), née Smith (1888–1973), daughter of the historian Arthur Lionel Smith, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. They had four sons and one daughter, including the diplomats Sir Giles Bullard (1926–1992) and Sir Julian Bullard (1928–2006).
Bullard retired in 1946. Towards the end of his life he lived in Plantation Road, North Oxford. Bullard's papers have been archived by St Antony's College, Oxford.
Works
Bullard published a number of books, including Britain and the Middle East (1951) and his autobiography The Camels Must Go: An Autobiography (Faber, 1961). The diaries that he kept during his time in the Soviet Union were published posthumously, under the title Inside Stalin's Russia (Day Books, 2000).