Oliver Shewell Franks, Baron Franks of Headington

Sitter in 8 portraits
Franks studied Classics at Oxford, where he later taught and met his wife Barbara Tanner. They left for Glasgow in 1937, where Franks took a Philosophy professorship. During World War II, he worked at the Ministry of Supply, becoming Permanent Secretary by 1945. In 1947, he led Britain's delegation to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, managing American aid under the Marshall Plan. In 1948, Attlee (who thought Franks the ablest man he had met) appointed him Ambassador to the United States, in which role he was instrumental to NATO. He left diplomatic life in 1952 for Lloyds Bank, chairing inquiries including that after the Falklands war. He was knighted in 1946 and made a life peer in 1962.