Georgina Butler

Georgina Susan Butler (born 30 November 1945) is a retired British diplomat. After postings at the Foreign Office, UKREP in Brussels, the European Commission, and in Washington D.C., she served as British Ambassador to Costa Rica and to Nicaragua. She later stood unsuccessfully for the European Parliament as a Conservative and was a Special Representative of the Foreign Secretary. Early life A daughter of Alfred Norman Butler of Torquay and his wife Joan Mary Harrington, Butler was educated at Torquay Grammar School for Girls and then from 1964 to 1968 at University College London, where she was Vice-President of the UCL Union in 1966–1967 and graduated LL.B. Diplomatic career In the autumn of 1968, soon after graduating from London University, Butler joined the diplomatic service as a Branch A cadet. Within months, she was given a posting to the British Embassy, Paris, but resigned in 1970 to marry a fellow diplomat, Stephen Wright, who had been posted to Cuba. At the time, there was a marriage bar for women diplomats, and Butler worked unpaid at the embassy in Havana until 1971, when she was re-employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on contract. In 1972 Butler was reinstated in Branch A and appointed to the FCO’s South European department. In 1975, she was appointed to UKREP in Brussels and in 1982 was seconded to the European Commission, returning to the FCO in 1985. In 1999, she was serving alongside her husband at the British Embassy, Washington D.C. She then had a further FCO posting as Deputy Head of its Latin American and Caribbean department. At the pinnacle of her career, she served as Ambassador to Costa Rica from February 2002 to 2006 and also as Ambassador to Nicaragua from 2004 to 2006. These were her last diplomatic appointments, although it had been announced in May that she would be transferring to another posting.