Ivor Pink
Sir Ivor Thomas Montague Pink was a British diplomat who served as ambassador to Chile from 1958 to 1961 and ambassador to Hungary from 1961 to 1965.
Early life and education
Pink was born on 9 September 1910, the son of Leonard and Ethel Pink. He was educated at Uppingham School and New College, Oxford.Career
Pink entered the Foreign Office in 1934 as third secretary and his first posting was to Tehran in 1938 where he learnt Persian. The following year, he was promoted to second secretary and returned to London in 1940. He served on the secretariat of the European Advisory Commission for six months, and was promoted to first secretary in 1944. In 1945, he was transferred to the Allied Control Commission for Germany at Berlin as deputy chief of the political division with rank of counsellor.Pink was posted to Tokyo in 1948 as counsellor, and acted as chargé d’affaires in 1948 and 1949. After a year spent at the Canadian National Defence College at Kingston, Ontario, he was appointed deputy to the permanent United Kingdom representative on the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in Paris with the rank of minister in 1950, and led the delegation in succeeding years. In 1953, he was seconded to the Ministry of Defence as a senior civilian instructor at the Imperial Defence College.
After serving as assistant under-secretary of state from 1954, Pink was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Chile and remained in the post from 1958 to 1961 while also serving as consul-general there from 1959. From 1961 to 1963, he was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the legation in Budapest and then, when it was upgraded to an Embassy, ambassador to Hungary from 1963 to 1965. During his tenure, relations between the UK and Hungary improved significantly.
In 1965, he returned to London and while awaiting his next posting his health declined and he died the following year.
Personal life and death
Pink married Dora Elizabeth Hall in 1950 whom he met during his posting in Ontario, widow of Lieutenant B. E. Hall, and they had a daughter.Pink died on 28 January 1966, aged 55.