Rodd , Francis James Rennell , 1895-1978 , 2nd Baron , merchant banker and geographer

Born, 1895; formally educated at Eton College and, for a year, at Balliol College, Oxford, which he left in Sep 1914 to join the Royal Field Artillery; served in France, 1914-1915; seconded to intelligence duties in Italy, 1916; staff officer in the Middle East and served in Libya, Sinai, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; staff captain, Arab bureau, Damascus; joined the diplomatic service, 1919-1924; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1921-1978; journey in the southern Sahara, 1922; worked on the Stock Exchange, 1926-1929; journey in the southern Sahara, 1927; RGS's Cuthbert Peek award, 1927; RGS founder's medal, 1929; Bank of England, 1929-1932, (two years of which he was seconded to the Bank for International Settlements at Basel); merchant bank Morgan, Grenfell and Co.,1933-1967; Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1939; civil affairs administration, for the Middle East, east Africa, and Italy, 1942; President of the RGS, 1945-1948; member of the board of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, 1954-1965; RGS Honorary Member, 1971; died, 1978.