Sir Michael Quinlan, GCB

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...

 (11 August 1930 – 26 February 2009) was a distinguished former British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 defence strategist and former Permanent Under-Secretary of State (generally known as the Permanent Secretary) at the British Ministry of Defence, who has written and lectured on defence and matters of international security, especially nuclear weapon

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 policies and doctrine, and also on concepts of ‘Just War’ and related ethical issues.

Quinlan was educated at Wimbledon College

Wimbledon College

Wimbledon College is a government-maintained voluntary-aided Jesuit Roman Catholic high school for boys aged 11 to 19. The school is based at Edge Hill, Wimbledon, London. It was founded in 1892 "for improvement in living and learning to the greater glory of God and the common good"...

 and Merton College, Oxford

Merton College, Oxford

Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...

. He married Mary Finlay in 1965, with whom he had four children.

On retirement from the Civil Service in 1992, Quinlan became Director of the Ditchley Foundation

Ditchley Foundation

The Ditchley Foundation is a British organisation based at Ditchley House near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, which aims to promote international relations, especially Anglo-American relations, through a programme of around fifteen annual conferences on matters of international interest...

. In 2001 he became Chairman of the The Tablet Trust, publisher of the Catholic newspaper The Tablet

The Tablet

The Tablet is a Catholic international weekly review published in London. Contributors to its pages have included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Paul VI ....

.

Quinlan was one of the world's foremost experts in deterrence theory

Deterrence theory

Deterrence theory gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons, and features prominently in current United States foreign policy regarding the development of nuclear technology in North Korea and Iran. Deterrence theory however was...

, contributing to debate and books in this field. He also wrote his own book on this matter shortly before his death. His contributions were recognised by Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in a speech given on 17 March 2009.