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Picture courtesy of Spink

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Grey Baldwin, KCMG CB was born in January 1867, and educated at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Commissioned Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in September 1885, he served in Burma on the Tonhon and Wuntho Expeditions, and in operations of the North East Column, 1889-92.

Promoted Captain in March 1896, he served with the Artillery during the Boer War, and was wounded in the leg at Moedewil, 30.9.1901; during his convalescence he served as Assistant to the Military Governor in Johannesburg. For his services in the Boer War he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 10.9.1901) and promoted Brevet Major.

In 1902 he entered the Consular Service, and was appointed Consul-General of Lourenco Marques in 1904; Consul-General of French West Africa in 1907; Consul-General of Liberia in 1909; and Consul-General of Romania in 1912, a post which carried with it the important work of British Representative on the European Commission of the Danube. When Romania was over-run by the Germans in the Great War, Baldwin returned to Britain via Russia, and was employed by the Foreign Office for the remainder of the War. In 1919 he went to Paris to sit upon the Inter-Allied Committee which drew up the Statutes of the European and International Commission of the Danube, and of the new Rhine, Elbe, and Odar Commission, which were set up under the Treaty of Versailles, and subsequently he was appointed British Commissioner on each separate River Commission and British Commissioner, Procurator, and Plenipotentiary on the European and International Commission of the Danube. Appointed a K.C.M.G. in 1929, he retired in 1933, having spent 20 years working on International Waterways. He died in April 1939.