Bede Clifford


Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford was a British diplomat and colonial administrator, born in New Zealand, where his parents had moved in an unsuccessful attempt at sheep-farming.
His parents were William Hugh Clifford, 10th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh and Catherine Mary Bassett. After New Zealand they moved to Tasmania; he did not attend a regular school until he was 10. He attended Melbourne University, then became a surveyor, then a merchant navy officer.

Career

After serving as an army captain in the Royal Fusiliers during World War I, he worked in imperial administration and diplomacy. From 1917 he was aide-de-camp, then secretary to the Governor-General of Australia, before taking the similar position in South Africa in 1921, as secretary to Prince Arthur of Connaught. He was Governor of the Bahamas from 1932 to 1934, and then was the 24th Governor of Mauritius from 23 October 1937 to 16 April 1942. He then became Governor of Trinidad and Tobago from 1942 to 1947.

Family

He married Alice Devin Gundry in 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. He retired to England, where he died. One of their daughters, Anne Frances May Clifford, married John Julius Norwich and is the mother of the historian Artemis Cooper.
Another daughter, Patricia David Pandora, married Timothy Angus Jones, son of Sir Roderick Jones and Enid Bagnold, and was the mother of Annabel Jones and the grandmother of Samantha Cameron, wife of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron.