Kinross, Patrick Balfour, baron, 1904-1976

John Patrick Douglas Balfour, Baron Kinross, was born June 25, 1904 in Edinburgh, Scotland; he inherited the title of 3rd Baron Kinross of Glasclune in 1939 upon the death of his father. He was educated at Winchester and Balliol Coll. Oxford (B.A. History 1925) and while at Oxford he became one of the "Bright Young People" along with Harold Acton, Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Brian Howard and John Betjeman. Kinross began his writing career as a journalist on the editorial staffs of various newspapers and as the society gossip columnist, "Mr. Gossip." He married Angela Mary Culme-Seymour in 1938 but the marriage ended in divorce in 1942. At the start of the war, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a squadron leader and worked in Intelligence, 1940-1944, he then served as Director, Publicity Section, British Embassy, Cairo, with the rank of 1st Sec. H.M. Diplomatic Service, 1944-1947. It was while traveling and serving during the war Kinross began a life-long interest in the Middle East and, especially, Turkey.

After the war, he traveled widely and worked as a free-lance journalist, writer, and broadcaster on radio, and later, television. His many works of social commentary, history, travel and biography include Society racket (1933), Grand tour (1934), Lords of the equator (1937), The ruthless innocent (1949), The orphaned realm (1951), Within the taurus (1954), Europa minor (1956), Portrait of greece (1956), The kindred spirit (1959), The innocents at home (1959), Atatürk (1964), Portrait of egypt (1966), The windsor years (1967), Between two seas (1968), Morocco (1971), Hagia sophia (1972), The ottoman centuries (published posthumously in 1977). Kinross was also a frequent contributor to various periodicals including Queen, Vogue, The new yorker and Punch. Kinross lived his entire adult life at 4 Warwick Avenue, London, where he died of cancer on June 5, 1976.

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