Sir (William) Roger Tomkys KCMG , (born 15 March 1937) [1] is a retired British diplomat, and former Master of Pembroke College, at the University of Cambridge.
He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford in 1960. [2]
Tomkys learned Arabic at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies in Lebanon, and immediately began his diplomatic career with a posting in Amman, Jordan, where he served from 1962 to 1964. He served as British Ambassador to Bahrain (1981–1984), and Syria (1984–1986), and as High Commissioner in Nairobi from 1990 to 1992. [3]
Tomkys served as Master of Pembroke College from 1992 to 2004; at Cambridge he also served as Chairman of the Centre of International Studies, as well as the Centre for Middle East and Islamic Studies. He also chaired the Arab British Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) from 2004 to 2010.
Tomkys was knighted by the Queen in 1991. [4]
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its founding, as well as extensive gardens. Its members are termed "Valencians". The college's current master is Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury.
Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain and then-Chancellor of the University.
Sir Richard Billing Dearlove is a retired British intelligence officer who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a role known informally as "C", from 1999 until 6 May 2004. He was head of MI6 during the invasion of Iraq. He was criticised by the Iraq Inquiry for providing unverified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Sir John Dixon Iklé Boyd was a British ambassador and academic administrator. He was British ambassador to Japan from 1992 to 1996, and subsequently the Master of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1996 to 2006.
Hugh Nigel Kennedy is a British medievalist and academic. He specialises in the history of the early Islamic Middle East, Muslim Iberia and the Crusades. From 1997 to 2007, he was Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London.
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