Frank Ashton-Gwatkin

Frank Trelawny Arthur Ashton-Gwatkin (14 April 1889 – 30 January 1976) was a British diplomat and Foreign Office official. He was a significant influence on the British foreign policy in the East Asia in the early 20th century. He also published a number of novels and other works under the pseudonym John Paris.

Ashton-Gwatkin was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. In the late summer of 1938, he served as Chief of Staff on the Runciman Mission to Czechoslovakia and was a member of the British delegation at the subsequent Munich Conference.

During the 1930s, Ashton-Gwatkin was a staunch advocate of the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. Although he later revised his views, Ashton-Gwatkin's political outlook at that time is encapsulated by his expressed hope - in the immediate aftermath of the Munich Agreement in 1938 - of “an Anglo-German policy of economic co-operation” flourishing within a German-dominated East Central Europe.

Ashton-Gwatkin's literary work, published under the name of John Paris, reflected his period of residence in Japan and included the novels Kimono (1921), Sayonara (1924), Banzai! (1925), The Island beyond Japan (1929), Matsu (1932) and a collection of verses A Japanese Don Juan and other Poems (1926). The novels were noted for their realistic portrayal of life in East Asia. Previously, whilst an undergraduate at Oxford, he had been awarded the 1909 Newdigate Prize for a poem entitled Michelangelo.