Harold Nicolson

Sir Harold George Nicolson KCVO CMG was a British diplomat, author, diarist, and politician. He was the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West.

In the 1930s, he and his wife acquired and moved to Sissinghurst Castle, near Cranbrook in Kent, the county known as the garden of England. There they created the renowned gardens that are now run by the National Trust.

He was an MP and vocally opposed to the rise of fascism in Britain and Europe. 

He was a friend of Churchill’s, and Nicolson’s diary is one of the pre-eminent British diaries of the 20th century. It is a noteworthy source on British political history from 1930 through the 1950s, particularly in regard to the run-up to World War II and the war itself: Nicolson served in high enough echelons to write of the workings of the circles of power and the day-to-day unfolding of great events. 

In 1952, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), as a reward for writing the official biography of George V.

His son Nigel Nicolson wrote a biography of his mother in 1973. He used his parents’ letters and diaries to talk very frankly about their happy open relationship and the fact that both of them had same-sex relationships.