Roger Stevens (diplomat)

Sir Roger Bentham Stevens (June 8, 1906 - February 20, 1980) was a British academic, diplomat and civil servant.

In 1928 Stevens entered the Consular Service, serving over the next three years in Buenos Aires, New York, Antwerp, Denver, and the Foreign Office in London.

Stevens held the following positions in his diplomatic career:

• Secretary of British Civil Secretariat, Washington D.C., 1944-1946,
• Foreign Office staff, 1946-1948,
• Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 1948-1951,
• British Ambassador to Sweden, 1951-1954,
• British Ambassador to Persia, 1954-1958,
• Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 1958-1963,
• Advisor to First Secretary of State on Central Africa, 1963-1970.

He married his first wife, Constance Hallam Hipwell (died 1976), in 1931, and they later had a son. In 1962, Stevens published The Land of the Great Sophy, and this was followed later by First View of Persia.

He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds between 1963 and 1970, and held other positions in local government and the civil service:

• Chairman of Yorkshire and Humberside Economic Planning Council, 1965-1970,
• Panel of Inquiry into Greater London Development Plan member, 1970-1972,
• Chairman of the Committee on Mineral Planning Control, 1972-1974,
• United Nations Administrative Tribunal (UNAT) member, 1972-1977.

Stevens' papers were deposited in Churchill Archives, Cambridge by his widow, Lady Jane Stevens (née Chandler) in 1984. Perhaps his more lasting legacy, however, is the Roger Stevens Building on the campus of Leeds University. Designed and built in the 1970s, it is notable for its futuristic architecture and labyrinthine floor plans, and has for years been both loved and lampooned by students.