(Hugh) Glencairn Balfour Paul (23 September 1917 – 2 July 2008) was a British Arabist and diplomat. He served as the British ambassador to Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia before becoming an academic at Exeter University.
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Biography
The son of John William Balfour Paul, he was born in Moniaive in Dumfriesshire, educated at Lime House school near Carlisle, then at Sedbergh School, before going to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1936, to read classics. He was also the great-grandnephew of the British supercentenarian Margaret Ann Neve, related to her on his mother's side. He served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during World War II before being sent east to Egypt and then on to Sudan to the Sudan Defence Force. After the war he served the Sudan Political Service as a District Commissioner in the Blue Nile and Darfur provinces. Before leaving Sudan in 1954, he set out on a camel trek to explore the foothills of eastern Ennedi in nearby Chad. After some days alone he met up with his local guide, Ordugu, who had worked with Wilfred Thesiger on his expedition to the Tibesti Mountains decades earlier.