{{short description|British diplomat}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Robert Paus Platt | honorific_suffix = OBE | office = Under-Secretary, Government of Mandatory Palestine | term_end = 22 July 1946 | birth_date = 1905 | birth_place = England | death_date = 22 July 1946 | death_place = Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine | death_cause = King David Hotel bombing | resting_place = Jerusalem | alma_mater = Queens' College, Cambridge | occupation = Diplomat, colonial administrator | spouse = Joan Rosa Lumley | parents = Robert M. Platt, Ellen Sophie Paus | awards = Officer of the Order of the British Empire | known_for = One of the highest-ranking British officials killed in the King David Hotel bombing }} '''Robert Paus Platt''' {{post-nominals|OBE}} (born 1905 in England, died 22 July 1946 in [[Jerusalem]]) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator. He served as [[undersecretary]] in the mandatory government of the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]]. As the deputy of the chief secretary he was one of the highest-ranking government officials in Mandatory Palestine, after the chief secretary and the [[List of high commissioners for Palestine and Transjordan|high commissioner]]. He was among the 91 victims of the [[King David Hotel bombing]], along with seven of his assistant secretaries. He was the highest-ranking British official to be killed in the attack. Prior to his work in Palestine he had been an [[assistant secretary#United Kingdom|assistant secretary]] (divisional manager) at the [[Colonial Office]] in London and served for eleven years in the administration of the [[Kenya Colony]], including as assistant [[Chief secretary (British Empire)|colonial secretary]].
==Career== Platt studied at [[Queens' College, Cambridge]]. He joined the [[Colonial Service#Colonial Administrative Service|Colonial Administrative Service]] as a cadet in 1927, serving in [[Kenya]] until 1938. He was appointed assistant [[resident commissioner]] in [[Mombasa]] in 1928<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=75DIKZgJvvgC&pg=PT1 The Official Gazette]'', 22 May 1928, p. 618</ref> and became a [[district officer]] in 1929. As of 1936 he was assistant [[Chief secretary (British Empire)|colonial secretary]] in Kenya, serving under colonial secretary and acting governor [[Armigel Wade]].<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=musjYUbfNAgC Kenya Colony and Protectorate Blue Book for the Year ended 31st December 1936]'', p. 207</ref> In 1938 he returned to London to become [[assistant secretary#United Kingdom|assistant secretary]] in the [[Colonial Office]].<ref>''The Colonial Legal Service List'', nr. 172, s. 106, Colonial Office, 1939</ref><ref>Anthony Hamilton Millard Kirk-Greene, ''A Biographical Dictionary of the British Colonial Service'', 1939–1966. London: Hans Zell, 1991</ref> He later became [[undersecretary]] in the mandatory government of the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] and was killed in the [[King David Hotel bombing]]. He was the most senior British official to be killed, among the 91 victims of the attack.<ref>''[http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.queens.cam.ac.uk/files/publicationFiles/1947-1948ocr.pdf Queens' College 1948–1948] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170418164540/http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.queens.cam.ac.uk/files/publicationFiles/1947-1948ocr.pdf |date=18 April 2017 }}''</ref><ref>Alice M. Boase, Mary Hannah, Margaret Knowlden, ''When the sun never set: a family's life in the British Empire'', p. 149, Radcliffe Press, 2005</ref> He was interred in [[Jerusalem]].
==Background== Platt was the son of Robert M. Platt and Ellen Sophie Paus, who married in 1904.<ref>''Leeds Mercury'', 3 June 1904</ref> His mother was a member of the noted [[Paus family]] of Norway. His maternal grandfather Christopher Paus, who was a first cousin of [[Henrik Ibsen]], was a Norwegian-born businessman who moved to England. His other three grandparents were English. He was a nephew of the British Consul in Oslo, [[Christopher Lintrup Paus]].
He was married to Joan Rosa Lumley, a daughter of James Maddy Lumley, a British colonial administrator in Africa who was Commissioner of Police in Kenya.
==Honours== *[[Order of the British Empire|Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] (OBE)
==References== <references />
{{Paus family}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Platt, Robert Paus}} [[Category:1946 deaths]] [[Category:1905 births]] [[Category:British diplomats]] [[Category:Colonial Administrative Service officers]] [[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]] [[Category:British people murdered abroad]] [[Category:British terrorism victims]] [[Category:Terrorism deaths in Jerusalem]] [[Category:British people of Norwegian descent]] [[Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge]] [[Category:20th century in Jerusalem]] [[Category:British people of the Palestine Emergency]] [[Category:People murdered in Mandatory Palestine]] [[Category:Paus family]] [[Category:Mass murder victims]]