Sir Horace George Montagu Rumbold, 9th Baronet, (5 February 1869 – 24 May 1941) was a British diplomat. A well-travelled man who learned Arabic, Japanese and German, he is largely remembered for his role as British Ambassador to Berlin from 1928 to 1933 in which he warned of the ambitions of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
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Background and education
Rumbold was born on 5 February 1869 at St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire, the son of Sir Horace Rumbold, 8th Baronet and Caroline Barney (née Harrington). Horace was educated at Aldin House Prep School and at Eton.
Career
Rumbold was an honorary attaché at The Hague (1889–1890), where his father was ambassador. In 1891, he passed the first of the required examinations and entered the Diplomatic Service.
After a year at the Foreign Office in London, he served in Cairo, Tehran, Vienna, Madrid and Munich between 1900 and 1913. He was then moved to Tokyo (1909–1913) and to Berlin (1913–1914). In Berlin, he took up the position of counsellor. Rumbold was in charge of the British Embassy when the ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, went home on leave on 1 July. Rumbold conducted negotiations in the first four of the ten days that preceded the outbreak of the First World War. Rumbold left Berlin with the ambassador on 5 August 1914, with crowds attacking the embassy and their train.