Sir George Vandeleur Fiddes (1858–1936), GCMG

Order of St Michael and St George

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, CB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 was the former British Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Early life

George Vandeleur Fiddes was born in Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...

, the son of George Richard Fiddes and Ellen Greening. He was educated at Dulwich College

Dulwich College

Dulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...

, his grandmother Jane Greening being a pensioner of the Dulwich College Estate when he was 12 and with whom he was living along with his mother Ellen in 1871. He was subsequently a scholar of Brasenose College, Oxford

Brasenose College, Oxford

Brasenose College, originally Brazen Nose College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As of 2006, it has an estimated financial endowment of £98m...

 where he took a second-class in Classical Moderations in 1879.

Career

He entered the Colonial Office in 1881. He was promoted First Class Clerk, after long service as private Secretary, in 1896. He went on to be appointed as Imperial Secretary and Accountant to Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, in 1897. In 1900 he was made Secretary to the Transvaal Administration and he returned to the Colonial Office as Principal Clerk in 1902. In 1909 he became Assistant Under-Secretary of State and Permanent Under-Secretary in February, 1916. He was made a knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in 1917.

Personal life

He married Lucia Marie Fiddes and had a daughter, Lucia Marie, in 1884 and a son, George Graham, in 1888.