Sir Auckland Geddes (1879-1954)
British Diplomat and Public Servant
The Right Honourable Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes, GCMG, KCB, MB, MD, FRSE

Born in London, the son of a Scottish engineer, Geddes is the brother of Sir Eric Geddes. He qualified as a doctor at Edinburgh University, and became a medical academic, holding the chairs of anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons of Dublin and at McGill University in Montréal. Always an enthusiastic member of the volunteer forces, he served with the Highland Light Infantry in South Africa and was called up as a staff officer in 1914, ending the war as director of recruiting and director-general of National Service with the rank of brigadier-general. For these services he was made KCB and sworn of the Privy Council. He is also Conservative member of Parliament for Basingstoke and Andover and is president of the Board of Trade from 1919 until March 1920. Leaving Parliament in 1920, he is immediately appointed HM Ambassador to Washington, a position he holds until 1924. During this time he serves as a British delegate to the Washington Naval Conference in 1921 and takes part in the negotiations for the settlement of the British war debt in 1922/23. Always suffering from poor eyesight, his resignation is prompted by the loss of the sight in one eye in an accident (he will later become completely blind), and he returns to England (having been made GCMG in 1922) to become chairman of the Royal Commission on Food Prices and then Chairman of the Rio Tinto Company, in which capacity he is one of the main instigators in the development of the Northern Rhodesian copper belt.

Highly intelligent and very knowledgeable about many subjects, but particularly about the natural sciences, Geddes is also a great teacher, the field in which his greatest talents and interests always lie. He has written the music for a number of songs, played rugby for his university and has a deep interest in the occult. He has been married since 1906 to the Irish-American Isabella Gamble Ross, and they have four sons (the oldest, Ross, born in 1907, is currently at Rugby, then Caius College, Cambridge) and one daughter. He lives in kent, at Frensham, The Layne, Rolvenden, near Cranbrook. He is a member of the Athenæum and Union Clubs.