John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby

John Loader Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, , (1 July 1877 – 20 April 1969) was a British civil servant and diplomat who was a key figure in Anglo-Irish relations during the Second World War. Maffey was the younger son of Thomas Maffey, a commercial traveller of Rugby, Warwickshire, and his wife, Mary Penelope, daughter of John Loader. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1899, and notably served as Assistant Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of North-West-Frontier-Province from 1912 to 1916 and then as Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India Lord Chelmsford from 1916 to 1920 and then Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province from 1921 to 1924. After a disagreement with the British government in 1924, Maffey resigned from the Indian Civil Service. In 1926 he became Governor-General of Sudan, followed in 1933 by his appointment as Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. On 14 September 1939, two weeks after the outbreak of World War II, Maffey arrived in Dublin to discuss the possibility of the United Kingdom appointing a British representative to Ireland. Later, following a discussion at the British War Cabinet, Maffey was sent back to Dublin again with a letter from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appealing once again for the appointment of a 'representative'. The United Kingdom would not agree to appoint an ambassador or a minister, because it would imply that Ireland was a foreign country outside the Commonwealth. On the other hand, Ireland would not agree to the appointment of a High Commissioner to Ireland because that would imply that Ireland was in the Commonwealth which the Irish government did not accept. As a compromise, Chamberlain proposed the title "United Kingdom Representative in Éire" but de Valera rejected this, insisting that the word 'in' be replaced with 'to'. And so "United Kingdom Representative to Éire" was agreed upon and Maffey was appointed on 3 October 1939.