James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC (9 November 1858 – 26 July 1941), known as Sir Rennell Rodd before 1933, was a British diplomat, poet and politician. He served as British Ambassador to Italy during the First World War.
Rodd was educated at Haileybury and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was associated with the circle of Oscar Wilde. In 1880, he won the Newdigate prize for Raleigh.[2] Wilde later assisted Rodd in securing publication for his first book of verse, Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf, for which Wilde provided an introduction.[3] As Wilde began to court scandal in his public career, their friendship cooled.[4] Following Wilde's trial, Rodd strongly dissociated himself from him,[5] particularly as his own work had contained a number of gently homoerotic verses, such as: "his eyes would gaze from his soul at mine/My eyes that would answer without one sign/And that were enough for love."[6]
In 1908 he was appointed ambassador to Italy. He remained in this post until 1919, and played a key role in securing Italy's adhesion to the Triple Entente. Rodd left the Diplomatic Service in 1919, but nonetheless served on the mission to Egypt in 1920, with The Viscount Milner. Rodd was the British delegate to the League of Nations from 1921 to 1923. He also sat as Unionist Member of Parliament for the constituency of St Marylebone between 1928 and 1932.[8]
Writing career and scholar
Apart from his diplomatic services Rodd was also a published poet and scholar of ancient Greece and Rome.[9] In 1920 he delivered the British Academy's Italian Lecture,[10][11] and in 1928 he visited America where he delivered a lecture on modern Greek folklore to an enraptured H. P. Lovecraft.[12] Earlier in 1927 he met travel writer Richard Halliburton at a party and the two "clicked at once" as Halliburton recounted his time in Greece, including his following in the footsteps of Odysseus and Alexander the Great, deeds which appeared in his recent The Glorious Adventure. [13] He published his memoirs, entitled Social and Diplomatic Memories, in three volumes between 1922 and 1925. His diaries were published in 1981 by Torsten Burgman, and edited by Victor Lal in 2005.[14]
Hon. Gustaf Guthrie Rennell Rodd (1905–1974), who married Yvonne Mary Marling, the youngest daughter of diplomat Sir Charles Murray Marling.
Lord Rennell died in July 1941, aged 82.[17] He was succeeded in the barony by his second, but eldest surviving, son Francis, who later served as president of the Royal Geographical Society.[18] His widow died on 20 September 1951.
Descendants
Though his daughter Gloria, he was a grandfather of four boys, including the portrait painter Dominick Elwes, who had three sons with Tessa Kennedy, including actor Cary Elwes.[19]
Arms
Coat of arms of Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
Crest
A representation of the Colossus of Rhodes over the shoulder a bow in the dexter hand an arrow and in the sinister a cup all Proper.
Escutcheon
Argent two trefoils slipped Sable on a chief of the second three crescents of the first.
Supporters
On either side a Cornish chough wings elevated and addorsed Proper each charged on the breast with a trefoil slipped Argent.
