Maurice Drummond Peterson was the younger son of
William Peterson (later Sir William Peterson, Principal of
University College, Dundee and later
McGill University). He was educated at
Rugby School and
Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a first class degree in modern history. He entered the
Foreign Office in 1913 and served at
Washington, Prague, Tokyo,
Cairo and
Madrid before being attached to the British delegation to the
Washington Naval Conference between October 1921 and February 1922 as private secretary to
Arthur Balfour. He was head of the Egyptian department in the Foreign Office 1931–1936 including four months in Cairo in 1934 as acting High Commissioner (during the absence of
Sir Miles Lampson) when he was instrumental in resolving a political dispute in the Egyptian government which resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister,
Abdel Fattah Yahya Ibrahim Pasha. Peterson was
Minister to
Bulgaria 1936–38. In March 1938 he was appointed to be "His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at
Bagdad" but this was quickly corrected to "His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to His Majesty the
King of Iraq." However, he remained in Iraq only until March 1939 when he was appointed ambassador to Spain, then under the regime of
Francisco Franco. In the early days of the 1939–45 war he defended British interests with such persistence that he was officially congratulated by the then Foreign Secretary,
Lord Halifax, yet in June 1940 he was recalled to London and served as Controller of Overseas Publicity in the
Ministry of Information 1940–41 and as head of the Egyptian, eastern and far eastern departments of the Foreign Office 1942–44. Peterson was Ambassador to
Turkey 1944–46 and finally Ambassador to the
Soviet Union 1946–49. In 1949 he retired from the Diplomatic Service due to illness, and was subsequently a director of
Midland Bank. ==Publications==