Basil Boothby CMG (9 September 1910 – 9 February 1990) was a British ambassador.
Evelyn Basil Boothby was the only son (with two sisters) of Major Basil Tanfield Beridge Boothby (1873-1948), of the Royal Engineers, FRGS, MICE, and Katherine Georgina, daughter of Major Francis Blake Knox, of the Royal Artillery.
[1] Boothby joined the Diplomatic Service in 1933 as a student interpreter in the China Consular Service, and continued to work in China until 1945 except for brief interludes in the United States and India during World War II.
He was Counsellor in the British Embassy in Brussels 1954–59, Head of the African Department at the Foreign Office 1959–62, Ambassador to Iceland 1962–65 and Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe 1965–69.
After retiring from the Diplomatic Service he taught at Morley College and later at the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London.