Victor Gordon-Lennox

Capt. Victor Charles Hugh Gordon-Lennox (10 September 1897 – 25 January 1968) was a British Army soldier and journalist who was a diplomatic correspondent for The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. In the lead-up to the Second World War, he was an editor of the influential conservative newsletter The Whitehall Letter.

Early life and education

Gordon-Lennox was born at 23 Lower Sloane St., Chelsea, London, into the Scottish aristocracy, the only child of politician Lord Walter Gordon-Lennox and his wife, Alice Ogilvy-Grant. His father was the youngest son of the 6th Duke of Richmond; his mother was the daughter of the Hon. George Henry Ogilvy-Grant and granddaughter of Francis Ogilvy-Grant, 6th Earl of Seafield.

He was educated privately and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then returned to action. In 1917, he served as aide-de-camp to Anthony Gustav de Rothschild of the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry and later to Lieutenant-General Sir John Du Cane.

Journalism Hjalmar Schacht and Gordon-Lennox at the 80th birthday celebration of historian Hans Delbrück in Berlin, November 1928. From 1923–9, Gordon-Lennox was The Daily Mails political correspondent. From 1930–4, he was the diplomatic correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, for which he wrote a "London Day by Day" column under the pseudonym Peterborough. In the 1930s, he, Graham Hutton, and American Helen Kirkpatrick edited a weekly anonymous newsletter The Whitehall Letter, which The Times called "one of the best informed of 'behind the scenes' information sheets" in politics. It was regularly read by future Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden; King Gustaf V of Sweden was also a subscriber.

According to The Timess obituary, he possessed "a knack of getting hold of something that others had missed. Gordon-Lennox was a well-liked character not only in what used to be loosely called "club-land" but in many countries. His distinguished appearance, the width of his contacts, his immense personal charm, made him stand out among journalists of his period."

In December 1932, he married Canadian athlete and journalist Diana Kingsmill, daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill, in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa. They met in Ottawa that summer while he was reporting on the British Empire Economic Conference for The Telegraph.

He died in 1968 in Sinnington, Yorkshire.