Eleanor Emery was a senior career diplomat in the service of the Commonwealth. When she took up her appointment as High Commissioner to Botswana in 1973, she became the first woman to be head of mission in the British Diplomatic Service.
She filled that role with style and distinction, establishing easy and effective working relations with the Botswana Government and, through her enthusiasm and energy, earning much admiration and affection among expatriates and Botswanans alike.
Eleanor Jean Emery was born in Glasgow of Scottish parents just after the end of the First World War.
Her father, as a young man seeking adventure, had earlier emigrated to western Canada, and when the war came he joined the Canadian Army, serving in France and Belgium with the 10th Infantry Battalion. When Eleanor was just a few months old, the family returned to western Canada, living initially in pioneer conditions in the tiny community of Seebe at the foot of the Rockies, and later moving to Calgary. It had always been her parents’ intention to return to Britain, and when Emery matriculated from Western Canada High School in 1936, she was sent, as a forerunner, back to Scotland to live with an aunt and attend Glasgow University.
She took a degree in constitutional history and developed a taste for long walks in good company in the beautiful Scottish countryside. In 1941 she applied to join the administrative class of the Civil Service and was appointed to an assistant principal post in the Dominions Office in London. She was soon made assistant private secretary to the Secretary of State, Clement Attlee, who was also doubling as Deputy Prime Minister.
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In 1945 she was posted to the High Commission in Ottawa and there she forged good contacts with the Canadian Department of External Affairs. She was back in London again from 1948, when the new Commonwealth Relations Office was being developed, and she was one of a younger generation with fresh ideas who were helping to shape it.
She was appointed private secretary to Patrick Gordon-Walker, briefly Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, followed by postings to India, South Africa, and a second term in Canada, interspersed with responsibilities in the London office for relations with South Asia and the Pacific Dependent Territories.
The culmination of her career, in the four years leading up to retirement, was her time as High Commissioner to Botswana. In the office and the residency her standards were high: colleagues and staff found her sometimes demanding but always appreciative. She saw to it that the high commission supported local charities – in particular the Scottish Livingstone Mission hospital in Molepolole.
Her creative drive to help Botswana continued into retirement. She was part of a group who assisted Aloysius Kgarebe, an old friend from her time as high commissioner, and at that time Botswanan High Commissioner in the UK, to set up a society “to encourage and strengthen ties between Britain and Botswana and to foster friendship and a better understanding between the peoples of the two countries”.
She was elected vice-chairman of the UK Botswana Society at its inaugural meeting in April 1981, becoming chairman in May 1984.
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She was appointed CMG in 1975.
Until overtaken by illness, she enjoyed a happy retirement in Cambridge, giving time and support to various charitable enterprises, and delighting in keeping in touch with her many friends all round the world.
Eleanor Emery, CMG, High Commissioner to Botswana, 1973-77, was born on December 23, 1918. She died on June 22, 2007, aged 88