Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Journalist and author; born 23 May 1852 in Europe, of Huguenot descent.[1] Educated in Paris and Germany; at Foreign Office 1872–6 where acquired habit (‘never really lost’) of thinking of himself as a diplomat;[2] travelled widely in Middle and Far East; journalist on Levant Herald, Constantinople, 1880 and Standard, London, 1882; joined The Times 1891 for which he was a brilliant, controversial correspondent in Berlin 1892–6 and chief of the foreign department 1899–1912; knighted 1912; author of books on India and the Middle East 1880s–1920s, and a talented watercolourist; never married; died of a heart attack at 34 Carlyle Square, London, on 22 October 1929.

Valentine Chirol was of medium height and slight figure. His appearance, as a young man, was neat, almost spruce; a pointed beard, reddish in colour, handsomely set off a fresh complexion and blue eyes.[3]
In later life, Chirol was

in fact, morbidly suspicious and secretive. His trick of looking round, and about, all the time he spoke, had the effect of worrying his colleagues; there seemed to be no repose about him.[4]

Carol Blackett-Ord

Referencesback to top

Collier 1905
Collier, J., The Art of Portrait Painting, London, 1905.

Fritzinger 2004
Fritzinger, L.B., ‘Chirol, Sir (Mary) Valentine Ignatius (1852–1929)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., January 2008.

Fritzinger 2006
Fritzinger, L.B., Diplomat without Portfolio: Valentine Chirol, his Life and The Times, London, 2006.

Morison 1947
Morison, S., The History of The Times, vol.3, The 20th Century Test, 1884–1912, London, 1947.

Wallach 1996
Wallach, J., Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia, New York and London, 1996.

Withers et al. 1935
Withers, H., and others, A Newspaper History, 1785–1935: Reprinted from the 150th Anniversary Number of ‘The Times’, London, 1935.