Gillian Brown

Dame Gillian Gerda Brown (10 August 1923 – 21 April 1999) was a British diplomat who was the second woman to be a British ambassador.

Early life She was born in Wimbledon, Her sister was the mycologist, Juliet Frankland. were liberalising recruitment policies at the Foreign Office – later the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FCO – which she joined in 1944. After service at Budapest, Washington, D.C. and the OECD in Paris, she was head of the Marine and Transport Department at the FCO 1967–70 and had to deal with the international aspects of the Torrey Canyon oil spill in March 1967.

Brown was Ambassador to Norway 1981–83; she was the second female British ambassador after Anne Warburton. In 1983 she retired from the diplomatic service and served on Civil Service selection boards and on the council of the Greenwich Forum. From 1988 to 1998 she was chairman of the Anglo-Norse Society in London which now annually awards the Dame Gillian Brown Postgraduate Scholarship in her memory.

Personal life Brown was a practicing Anglican. She died suddenly at her sister's home in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria in April 1999.

Honours Brown was appointed CMG in 1971 and made a Dame (female equivalent of Knight) of the Royal Victorian Order in 1981. The King of Norway awarded her the Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav. She was an honorary fellow of her alma mater, Somerville College, Oxford, and honorary LLD of the University of Bath.