Dame Anne Warburton obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/15/dame-anne-warburton

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Dame Anne Warburton was Britain’s first female ambassador, at a time when women in the diplomatic service were often seen as mere appendages. She became ambassador to Denmark in 1976, three years after the marriage ban on female diplomats was lifted. Until her appointment, women had been “diplomatic wives” rather than equal players in the service.

Warburton, who has died aged 87, did not marry and devoted herself to a range of leadership roles, including nine years as president of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, which was set up to give educational opportunities to women over 21. She worked for women’s rights all her life, serving on the Equal Opportunities Commission from 1986 to 1988 and leading the European Community’s team investigating atrocities against Muslim women in Bosnia in 1992.

Warburton was sent as ambassador to Denmark by James Callaghan, then foreign secretary, a year after Harold Wilson’s government passed the Sex Discrimination Act. Before that, the general view had been that if women diplomats were pretty, they wouldn’t be taken seriously, and if they were clever, they would cause offence.

In 1962, Barbara Salt had been appointed ambassador to Israel, though illness prevented her from taking up her post. It was another 12 years before Warburton was appointed. Although some of the embassy staff were at first wary of a female ambassador, she quickly won them over. She later admitted that she would have been happy to leave the service had she wanted to marry, but was enjoying her life too much.

Warburton was formidable – highly intelligent, uncompromising in her standards, perceptive and exacting. Yet she was also a kind and generous friend and a mentor for other women in the foreign service.

As ambassador in Denmark, Warburton travelled widely across the country she grew to love. She hosted the Queen’s state visit there in 1979 (and that year was made a dame) and 10 years after leaving the embassy published a guide to living in the country, Signposts to Denmark (1992). She befriended Queen Margrethe of Denmark and in 1989, during her presidency of Lucy Cavendish, made her an honorary fellow of the college.

Warburton was the daughter of Eliot, an army captain, and his American wife, Mary Louise (nee Thompson). The family lived in the US during the second world war and Warburton studied for her first degree at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. She later went to Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained an MA in philosophy, politics and economics.

Though she had always wanted to join the diplomatic service, Warburton worked at first with the Economic Co-operation Administration, administering the postwar Marshall plan from London, Nato in Paris, and then at the London office of the bankers Lazard.

She finally joined the Foreign Office in 1957 and spent time in Bonn, New York and Geneva before becoming ambassador to Denmark at the age of 49. She told friends her happiest years were spent in Denmark and at Lucy Cavendish, where she took up the presidency in 1985, after a spell in Geneva as Britain’s ambassador at the UN.

On arriving at Lucy Cavendish, Warburton said that she “liked to make things happen” and she put those words into action. At that time the college was small, new and poor, and she set about building itys profile and estate. What had begun in 1965 as a small foundation with only 10 students became a full college at the University of Cambridge in 1997, in part because of Warburton’s efforts. She was committed to its focus on attracting older women from diverse backgrounds.

Student numbers at Lucy Cavendish almost doubled, to 133, during her tenure, and she planned the development of several new buildings, including the spacious dining hall which has been named after her. Her steely-eyed portrait surveys today’s 380 students as they enjoy the status of full members of Cambridge University. She also increased the number of research fellows, believing that one of the key functions of the college was to “add to the reservoir of academic women”.

Of her time at Lucy Cavendish, Warburton said: “Perhaps the greatest personal reward for me is to see undergraduates, some of whom are so unsure of themselves when they first come up, being able to say when they leave, ‘Now I can do something.’” She named her beloved labrador, Lucy, after the college and continued as a friend and mentor once she had retired, becoming an honorary fellow herself in 1994.

Two years before leaving Cambridge, Warburton was asked by the then prime minister, John Major, to lead the EC team heading to Bosnia to investigate the mass rape of Muslim women. Her report concluded that systematic abuse had taken place and that rape was being used as a weapon of war. It prompted worldwide attention to the subject. She confessed to colleagues privately that she found the inquiry very painful but felt that she owed it to the women who had endured such horrific crimes not to show it.

In 1994, with retirement plans in place for a quieter life in her home near Eye in Suffolk – built in Danish style – Warburton was asked back into public life as a member of the Nolan committee investigating standards of conduct in public life. Set up after the cash-for-questions scandal, it was to recommend measures to restore public confidence in politicians.

Warburton’s integrity shone through in all the roles she occupied. She tried to play down the importance of her smashing of glass ceilings, saying: “I always wanted to do a good job at anything I did. The only difference in being the first woman was that it made it important on other people’s account.”

She is survived by five nephews and four nieces.

• Anne Marion Warburton, diplomat, born 8 June 1927; died 4 June 2015