OBITUARY

- S~. I

SIR PAUL SINKER

Expansion of British Council

Sir Paul Sinker, KCMG, CB, Director-General of the British Council froni 1954 to 1968, died qn February 26. He was 71. After retiring from the Council he was chairman of the Council for Small Industries, and he becamie chairman of the Crafts Advisory Committee in 1971.

He was an adminisfrator of high capacity. He was one of the many instances of the academic, diverted to other activi. ties by pressure of circumstance, proving that he can excel in a range of opportuni-

ies ~seemingly with' little or no: f-ornexioit with pufe learning.

Algernon Paul Sinker w-as a parson's son and was born ill 1905. His elder brother becamne Provost of Birmingham Cathedral, and he himself seemedi to retain at least a little of the traditional austerity of the cloth. He was at school at Haileybury, proceeeding thence to Jesus College, Cambridge, after which he spent a year at the University of Vienna. H{is Cambridge career was distinguished. He won the Prince Consort prize, and became a Fellow of his college in 1927 and was so until 1949. Fros p 1929 until the war he wfas a tutor, and a university lecturer in classics. He published little, though his Introduction to Lucretius (1937) was a useful guide to the greatest didactic poet of antiquity.

Sinker was one of the handpicked dons who did such outstanding service in the war-time Admiralty, where his drive, and his ability to master whatever task was before him took him to posts of much responsibilitv. At one time he was Head *of War Registry, which involved the handling of an enormous volume of incoming letters, signals and dispatches, and at a critical stage in the struggle he

sas with the Admiralty mission at Washington. This was never a sinecure, least of all in 194142, when he was en post.

alfter the war the autdorities were naturally reluctant to let

sinker return to the ouiet of a Cambridge college, and for five years he was at the Treasury, a sure sign that his abilities vere used to the full. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath in 1950, and in fbat year he was loaned to the Government of Egypt as adviser on Civil Service questions. When he. returned home he became First Civil Service Commissioner, concerned with the recruitmnent and regulation of

entries. * It' was from that' appointment that he transferred.' to the British Council, of wvhich he became. Director-General, being created KCMG in 1954.

Sinker took 'charge of the

Council at a. critical stage in itshistory." Its giant-in-aid had

bein heavily redueed4 it hadlong been a target for attacke by often ill-informed:'and sometimes maliciou: critics, and -it wafi no fault of.his popular adenlightened predecessbr; General Sir Ronald Forbes Adam, that when '.; he joined there was a -private prayer among thwe staff ". . . as. in...