Nicholas O'Conor


Sir Nicholas Roderick O'Conor was an Anglo-Irish diplomat. When he died, Sir Nicholas was the British Ambassador to Turkey.

Early life

He was born, the youngest of three sons, to Patrick A. C. O'Conor and Jane French, into a cadet branch of the Catholic O'Conor Don family of County Roscommon. He was raised on his family estate Dun Dermot on the Roscommon-County Galway border. He was educated at Stonyhurst College.

Career

O'Conor entered the diplomatic service in 1866. In his early years, he was attached to the Embassy in Berlin, achieving the rank of Third Secretary in 1870. He served as Secretary at the Hague, Madrid. Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. He was trained in the diplomatic service by Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, and was a member of the Tory-sympathetic 'Lyons School' of British diplomacy. He was Secretary and Chargé d'Affaires at Peking and Washington, Political Agent and Consul-General in Bulgaria.

Head of Mission

O'Conor's first ministerial appointment was at the British Legation at Peking.
In 1896, O'Conor was made a Privy Counsellor.
O'Conor died in Constantinople following hemorrhage of the stomach. He was the first British Ambassador to die in post in Turkey since Sir Edward Barton, Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth I to Sultan Mehmet III, died in 1598 at the Panagia Apsinthiotissa.

Family

He was married to Minna Margaret Hope-Scott, daughter of James Robert Hope-Scott, Q.C. and Lady Victoria Hope-Scott. They had three daughters:
His eldest daughter Fearga Victoria Mary O'Conor married Rear-Admiral Malcolm Raphael Joseph Constable-Maxwell-Scott, son of Hon. Joseph Constable-Maxwell-Scott and Mary Monica Hope-Scott, on 6 September 1918. She died on 22 March 1969. They had three children.
1. Sir Michael Fergus Constable-Maxwell-Scott, 13th Bt. of the Constable Maxwell-Scott baronets
2. Elizabeth Mary Constable-Maxwell-Scott
3. Ian Malcolm Constable-Maxwell-Scott
His second daughter, Muriel Margaret Minna O'Conor married Charles Joseph Nevile, son of Ralph Henry Christopher Nevile, on 21 April 1919.
In 1918, at the Brompton Oratory, his youngest daughter Eileen Winifred Madeleine O'Conor married Prince Matyla Ghyka of Romania.