Rowland Sperling


Sir Rowland Arthur Charles Sperling KCMG CB was a British diplomat.

Early life

Sperling was born in 1874 in London, England the son of Commander Rowland Money Sperling, RN, and Marian Charlotte daughter of Charles Keyser and Margaret Blore. He was educated at Eton College and New College Oxford in 1892. He left New College in 1899 before gaining a degree to work as a clerk in the Foreign Office.

Diplomat

He was sent to Russia in 1902 to learn Russian before becoming acting third secretary in St Petersburg in the Diplomatic Service. He returned to the Foreign Office in 1905 first as an assistant clerk, then a senior clerk and in 1914 Head of the Western Department. He stayed in the Foreign Office during the first world war and was an attached to the Paris Peace Conference : assistant secretary Foreign Office 1919. In 1920 he represented the United Kingdom at a conference on international communications in Washington. By 1924 he was transferred to the Diplomatic Service and he was appointed Minister at Berne, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Switzerland 1924–28. In 1928 he moved as Minister to Sofia, Bulgaria 1928–9, and then to Finland 1930–35. He retired from the service in 1935.

Family life

Sperling had married Dorothy Constance Kingsmill, daughter of William Howley Kingsmill, DL, JP, of Sydmonton Court, Sydmonton, and Constance Mary Portal,, in 1905 and they had two sons and a daughter. One son was killed on active service in a flying accident at Manston Airport in March 1940. His wife died in 1951. One of his wife's first cousins was Sir Wyndham Raymond Portal, 3rd Bart., 1st Viscount Portal, GCMG, MVO, DSO, PC.
Following retirement to Kingsclere's Knowl Hill, in Hampshire, new Newbury, from 1936 to 1949 he was a member of Hampshire County Council and in 1945–1946 Sperling was High Sheriff of Hampshire. He was a member of the Travellers' club.
Sperling died on 8 January 1965 at his home in Wiltshire aged 91.
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