James Bruce Lockhart

James Robert "Jamie" Bruce Lockhart (14 March 1941 – 27 October 2018) was a British diplomat, intelligence officer, author, and artist. The son of diplomat J. M. Bruce Lockhart and grandson of Scottish rugby international John Bruce Lockhart, he gained a modern languages degree from the University of Cambridge before beginning a career with the Foreign Office. However, this work was in fact a cover for his real work with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). In later years, Lockhart became a published author, with works including a biography of Hugh Clapperton and a book about life in an English preparatory school. He was the father of actor Dugald Bruce Lockhart.

Early life Born in March 1941 at Sedbergh, which was then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Lockhart was the son of J. M. Bruce Lockhart (1914–1995), by his marriage in 1939 to Margaret Hone, a daughter of Campbell Hone, Bishop of Wakefield. James was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, Sedbergh School, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. He was able to maintain a flair for languages all through his life.

Career After graduating from Cambridge in 1963, Lockhart became a diplomat and intelligence officer, and on his hidden career he later had little to say, except that he had followed a similar path to that of John Le Carré in Germany. He took the Foreign Office entrance examination, coming top in the Greek paper. However, an obituary in The Sunday Times stated that his "ostensible career in the Foreign Office masked his real work with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)". He joined MI6 in 1973, and the skill he had in foreign languages was important in his work for it, especially his knowledge of Russian in a posting to Vienna.

Reviewing his two earlier Clapperton editions, Anthony Kirk-Greene said in The Journal of African History "James Bruce-Lockhart has made a significant archival addition to our knowledge of the literary legacy of Hugh Clapperton".

In retirement, Lockhart settled at Southwold and then Saxmundham, in Suffolk, and was notable as a watercolour artist, with several solo exhibitions, signing his work J. R. Bruce Lockhart. James R. Bruce-Lockhart, John Wright, Difficult and Dangerous Roads: Hugh Clapperton's Travels in Sahara and Fezzan 1822–1825 (London: Sickle Moon Books, 2000) Jamie Bruce Lockhart, A Sailor in the Sahara: The Life and Travels in Africa of Hugh Clapperton, Commander RN (I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007, ) Jamie Bruce Lockhart, Loch Longs: The Third Quarter-Century 1987–2012 (Peridot Press, 2011, ) Jamie Bruce Lockhart, Alan Macfarlane, Dragon Days: The Dragon School, Oxford, 1949–1955 (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013, ) Jamie Bruce Lockhart, Sedbergh Letters (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013, ) Jamie Bruce Lockhart, African Footsteps: From the Guinea coast to the desert's edge (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013, )