Georgina Butler

Georgina Susan Butler (born 30 November 1945) is a retired British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to Costa Rica and to Nicaragua. She later joined the Conservatives and considered a political career.

Early life[]

A daughter of Alfred Norman Butler of Torquay and his wife Joan Mary Harrington, Butler was educated at Torquay Grammar School for Girls and then from 1964 to 1968 at University College London, where she was Vice-President of the UCL Union in 1966-1967 and graduated LL.B.^[1][2]

Career[]

In the autumn of 1968, soon after graduating from London University, Butler joined the diplomatic service as a Branch A cadet. Within months, she was given a posting to the British Embassy, Paris, but resigned in 1970 to marry a fellow diplomat, Stephen Wright, who had been posted to Cuba. At the time, there was a marriage bar for women diplomats, and Butler worked unpaid at the embassy in Havana until 1971, when she was re-employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on contract. In 1972 Butler was reinstated in Branch A and appointed to the FCO’s South European department.^[3] In 1975, she was appointed to UKREP in Brussels and in 1982 was seconded to the European Commission, returning to the FCO in 1985.^[4] In 1999, she was serving alongside her husband at the British Embassy, Washington D.C.^[5] At the pinnacle of her career, she served as Ambassador to Costa Rica from February 2002 to 2006^[1][6] and also as Ambassador to Nicaragua from 2004 to 2006. These were her last diplomatic appointments.^[7]

In 2003, Butler was elected as a Fellow of University College London, and in 2010 became chairman of its Denys Holland Scholarship Fund.^[1]

In 2006, Butler was invited by David Cameron to join his A-List of preferred Conservative candidates. In October 2013, she was announced as one of those standing for the party in the European Parliament election of 2014 in South West England, together with Ashley Fox, Julie Girling, James Cracknell, Sophia Swire, and Melissa Maynard.^{[8] [9]} Butler said during the campaign that she hoped her experience of diplomacy would give her a stronger hand in helping with Cameron's renegotiation of Britain's EU membership and delivering a referendum on it in 2017, if the Conservatives were to win the next general election.^[8]

The UK Independence Party ran strongly in South West England, gaining 51,000 more votes than the Conservatives. Two of its candidates, William Dartmouth and Julia Reid, were elected as Members of the European Parliament, and at number 4 on the Conservative party list, Butler was unsuccessful.^[10]

From 2017 to 2019 Butler was chairman of the Richmond Park and North Kingston Conservative Association.^[11] In December 2019 she was appointed as a Special Representative of the Foreign Secretary for greeting Heads of State and overseas government visitors on arrival in the United Kingdom.^[12]

Personal life[]

From her marriage to Stephen Wright in 1970, Butler has a daughter, born in 1977, and a son, born in 1979.^[13] She and her husband were divorced in 2000.^[2]

References[]