Arthur de la Mare

Sir Arthur James de la Mare (15 February 1914 – 15 December 1994) was a British diplomat. He rose to the rank of High Commissioner of Singapore, and was a leading authority on Asian affairs to the British Foreign Office. Life and career Arthur James de la Mare was born into a farming family in Saint John, Jersey. He grew up speaking the Norman French patois of his native island. He was educated at Victoria College, Jersey, then won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in modern languages. He joined the Foreign Service in 1936 and served in Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. De la Mare was acting consul general to Seoul by 1938 when the consul general fell ill and had to return to Britain. At the time he had nothing more than two years' Japanese language training. Upon his arrival in Seoul in the late 1930s he was acting consul general, and then the vice consul promptly retired, and De la Mare took on his responsibilities as well. De la Mare had no consular training at this stage. He was later appointed head of the Far Eastern department of the Foreign Office.