David Hannay, Baron Hannay of Chiswick

Hannay was born in London and educated at Craigflower Preparatory School, Winchester College and New College, Oxford. He entered the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1959, and was initially posted to positions in Tehran and Kabul. Starting in 1965 and continuing into the early 1970s, he was a representative of the British government in discussions which led to the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973.

He held various positions at the Foreign Office in London during the 1970s and 1980s. He was a minister at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in 1984–1985, and was then promoted to ambassador and permanent representative to the European Economic Community from 1985 to 1990. After that posting he spent the next five years as ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations.

Whilst in his role as ambassador to the UN in 1994, Hannay was one of several who objected to the use of the term genocide in a Security Council draft resolution on the killings in Rwanda. The term was removed from the final resolution thus delaying UN action to prevent further bloodshed.

Hannay took on specialised roles such as United Nations Special Representative for Cyprus between 1996 and 2003 and was a member of the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, reporting to the Secretary-General in December 2004.

In 1981 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), in 1986 a Knight Commander (KCMG) and in 1995 a Knight Grand Cross (GCMG).

On 19 June 2001 he was created a life peer as Baron Hannay of Chiswick, of Bedford Park in the London Borough of Ealing, sitting as a crossbencher.

He was pro-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham from 2001 to 2006.

In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour.

Lord Hannay was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Birmingham University in 2003.

David Hannay was married to Gillian Hannay who died in 2015. He has four sons (Richard, Philip, Jonathan and Alexander) and twelve grandchildren (Peter, Juliette, Charlotte, Edward, Robin, Manon, Gustavo, Harry, Sophie, Julian, Albert and Theodore).

• Cyprus: The Search for a Solution. London: I.B.Tauris, 2005. ISBN 9781850436652
• Britain's Quest for a Role: A Diplomatic Memoir from Europe to the UN. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013. ISBN 9781780760568