Editing Christopher Ewart-Biggs

{{Short description|British diplomat, intelligence officer, and author (1921–1976)}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name               = Christopher Ewart-Biggs
|honorific-suffix   = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|sep=,|CMG|OBE}}
|image              = Ewart-biggs.jpg
|imagesize          = 220px
|alt                = 
|order              = 
|ambassador_from    = British
|country            = Ireland
|monarch            = [[Elizabeth II]]
|primeminister      = [[James Callaghan]]
|term_start         = 9 July 1976
|term_end           = 21 July 1976
|predecessor        = [[Arthur Galsworthy|Sir Arthur Galsworthy]]
|successor          = Robin Haydon
|birth_date         = {{Birth date|1921|8|5|df=yes}} 
|birth_place        = [[Thanet District|Thanet]], [[Kent]], England
|death_date         = {{death date and age|1976|7|21|1921|8|5|df=yes}}
|death_place        = [[Sandyford]], [[Dublin]], Ireland
|death_cause        = [[Assassination]]
|party              = 
|otherparty         = 
|spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{Marriage|Mary Raines Gavrelle Thomas|1952|1959|end=died}}
* {{Marriage|[[Jane Ewart-Biggs, Baroness Ewart-Biggs|Felicity Jane Randall]]|1960}}
}}
|relations          = 
|children           = 3, including [[Kate Ewart-Biggs]]
|residence          =
|education          = [[Wellington College, Berkshire|Wellington College]]
|alma_mater         = [[University College, Oxford]]
|occupation         = 
|profession         = 
<!--Military service-->
|nickname           = 
|allegiance         = United Kingdom
|branch             = [[British Army]]
|serviceyears       = 
|rank               = 
|unit               = [[Royal West Kent Regiment]]
|commands           = 
|battles            = [[Second World War]]
* [[Second Battle of El Alamein]]
|mawards            = 
}}

'''Christopher Thomas Ewart Ewart-Biggs''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|sep=,|CMG|OBE}} (5 August 1921 – 21 July 1976) was the British Ambassador to [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]], an author and senior [[Foreign Office]] liaison officer with [[MI6]]. He was killed in 1976 by the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] (IRA) in [[Sandyford]], [[Dublin]].

His widow, [[Jane Ewart-Biggs, Baroness Ewart-Biggs|Jane Ewart-Biggs]], became a Life Peer in the [[House of Lords]], campaigned to improve Anglo-Irish relations and established the [[Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize]] for literature.

==Early life and career==
Christopher Thomas Ewart-Biggs was born in the [[Thanet District|Thanet]] district of [[Kent]], England, to Captain Henry Ewart-Biggs of the [[Royal Engineers]] and his wife Mollie Brice. He was educated at [[Wellington College, Berkshire|Wellington College]] and [[University College, Oxford]], and served in the [[Royal West Kent Regiment]] of the [[British Army]] during the [[Second World War]]. At the [[Second Battle of El Alamein]] in 1942 he lost his right eye and as a result he wore a [[smoked glass|smoked-glass]] [[monocle]] over an artificial eye. He spent the rest of the war and after (1943–7) as political officer in [[Yafran|Jefren]], [[Tripolitania]], where he learned fluent Italian and some Arabic.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web | url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/biggs-christopher-thomas-ewart-a0657 | title=Biggs, Christopher Thomas Ewart |publisher=Dictionary of Irish Biography }}</ref>

Ewart-Biggs joined the Foreign Service in 1949, serving in [[Lebanon]], [[Qatar]] and [[Algiers]], as well as [[Manila]], [[Brussels]] and [[Paris]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/devoted-diplomat-who-abhorred-violence-1.319517|title=Devoted diplomat who abhorred violence |date=25 July 2001 |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]]}}</ref>

Following study at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies near Beirut, he was posted as political officer to Qatar (1951). In 1952 he married Gabrielle Verschoyle, and gained four stepchildren. The couple wrote a number of thrillers together using the pen name ‘Charles Elliott’ including ''Trial by Fire'' (1956). In 1959 she died in childbirth. He remarried (Felicity) Jane Randall on 5 May 1960.<ref name="auto1"/> They had three children, Henrietta, Robin and [[Kate Ewart-Biggs]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |title=Kate Ewart-Biggs: 'We were greeted by a line of staff crying... I knew in that moment my father had died' |language=en-GB |work=belfasttelegraph |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/kate-ewart-biggs-we-were-greeted-by-a-line-of-staff-crying-i-knew-in-that-moment-my-father-had-died-38936490.html |access-date=2022-07-18 |issn=0307-1235}}</ref>

==Death==
Ewart-Biggs was killed on 21 July 1976, at age 54, when his [[Armored_car_(VIP)|armoured]] [[Jaguar_Cars|Jaguar]] car, part of a four-vehicle convoy on its way to the [[Embassy of the United Kingdom, Dublin|British Embassy in Dublin]], was thrown into the air by a land mine planted by the IRA.<ref name="telegraph1">{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538066/Ireland-and-the-death-of-the-ambassador.html|title=Ireland and the death of the ambassador |date=29 December 2006 |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite web|date=19 July 2001 |title=MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR CHRISTOPHER EWART-BIGGS, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, 1976 |url=https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/54e6de9e0c383719802572b9005141ed/6b5fc952088d3044802572ab004b4468?OpenDocument |publisher=Foreign and Commonwealth Office |location=London }}</ref> He had been taking precautions to avoid such an incident since coming to Dublin only two weeks before. Among the measures he employed was to vary his route many times a week but, at a vulnerable spot on the road connecting his residence to the main road, there was only a choice between left or right. He chose right, and, 317 yards down the road, the [[Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army|IRA]] remotely detonated 200 pounds of explosives hidden under a culvert.<ref>{{cite news|date=26 May 2015|title=Sir Brian Cubbon, civil servant - obituary|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11630077/Sir-Brian-Cubbon-civil-servant-obituary.html|newspaper=The Telegraph|location=London|accessdate=26 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="auto"/> Ewart-Biggs and fellow passenger and [[civil servant]] Judith Cooke (aged 26) were killed. Driver Brian O'Driscoll and third passenger [[Brian Cubbon]] (the highest-ranking civil servant in [[Northern Ireland]] at the time) were injured.<ref>{{Cite news |first=Liam |last=Collins |url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/uk-diplomats-murder-on-lonely-dublin-road-triggered-state-crisis-34900857.html |title=UK diplomat's murder on lonely Dublin road triggered State crisis |newspaper=[[Irish Independent]]|date=21 July 2016 }}</ref> Republicans suggested Ewart-Biggs was targeted because of his intelligence connections<ref name="telegraph1"/> though possibly Cubbon was the intended target.<ref name="auto1"/> Two months after his murder, the IRA claimed responsibility and said that Ewart-Biggs had been sent to Dublin "to co-ordinate British intelligence activities and he was assassinated because of that." The [[British Foreign Office]] dismissed the claim as nonsense.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/imported/tragic-irony-of-brutal-murder-28353945.html | title=Tragic irony of brutal murder | newspaper=Belfasttelegraph }}</ref>

It later emerged that the UK's [[Secretary of State for Northern Ireland]], [[Merlyn Rees]], had at the last minute been forced to cancel plans which would have placed him in the convoy. He was to travel to the Republic to consult with the ambassador and Irish ministers, but postponed his trip after [[Margaret Thatcher]] refused to allow Northern Ireland ministers to [[Pair (parliamentary convention)|''pair'' their votes]] in [[House of Commons]] divisions. Rees wrote in his memoirs, ''Northern Ireland, a Personal Perspective'', that it seemed likely the IRA had known of his impending visit but were unaware of its cancellation.<ref name="auto"/>

==Investigation==
The Irish government launched a manhunt involving 4,000 [[Garda Síochána|Gardaí]] and 2,000 soldiers.<ref name="TIME"/> [[Taoiseach]] [[Liam Cosgrave]] declared that "this atrocity fills all decent Irish people with a sense of shame."<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/22/archives/britains-envoy-in-dublin-killed-by-mine-britains-ambassador-in.html|title=Britain's Envoy in Dublin Killed by Mine |first=Bernard |last=Weinraub |date=22 July 1976|newspaper=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref> In London, the UK Prime Minister [[James Callaghan]] condemned the assassins as a "common enemy whom we must destroy or be destroyed by".<ref name="TIME">{{Cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914439,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110220081021/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914439,00.html |archive-date=20 February 2011 |title=Trial by Fire in Dublin |date=2 August 1976 |url-status=dead |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] }}</ref> Thirteen suspected members of the IRA were arrested during raids as the British and Irish governments attempted to apprehend the assassins, but no one was ever convicted of the killings. In 2006, released [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office]] files revealed that the Gardaí had matched a partial fingerprint at the scene to Martin Taylor, an IRA member suspected of [[gun running]] from the United States.<ref name="telegraph1"/> Taylor denied involvement.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538132/Prime-suspect-denies-ambassadors-murder.html|title=Prime suspect denies ambassador's murder |first=Stewart|last= Payne|date=30 December 2006 |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[List of Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Ireland]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.rte.ie/archives/2016/0720/803675-search-for-british-ambassadors-assassins/ "Christopher Ewart-Biggs Assassinated 1976"], [[RTÉ News]], 22 July 1976.

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{{succession box |
  before=[[Arthur Galsworthy]] |
  title=[[List of Ambassadors from the United Kingdom to the Republic of Ireland|British Ambassador to Ireland]] |
  years=1976 |
  after=[[Walter Robert Haydon]] |
}}
{{s-end}}

{{PIRA}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ewart-Biggs, Christopher}}
[[Category:1921 births]]
[[Category:1976 deaths]]
[[Category:People murdered in 1976]]
[[Category:20th-century British diplomats]]
[[Category:Alumni of University College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Ireland]]
[[Category:Assassinated British diplomats]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:British people murdered abroad]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:Deaths by improvised explosive device in the Republic of Ireland]]
[[Category:Ireland–United Kingdom relations]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire]]
[[Category:People killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army]]
[[Category:People murdered in the Republic of Ireland]]
[[Category:Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment officers]]
[[Category:People assassinated in the 20th century]]
[[Category:Assassinated ambassadors]]