[2] He served in British embassies or legations in Turkey, Egypt, China, France, Russia, Morocco, Argentina, Paraguay, Spain, Greece, and in the Foreign Office.
At the outbreak of the First World War he was released from the Foreign Office to serve in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry, rising to the rank of major.
During the Second World War, at the age of 69, Sir Claud enlisted in the Home Guard.
In his contribution to the Shuster Committee review in 1934 he said, "I have an instinctive prejudice in favour of change, which I associate with improvement and reform ...
I do not see why a woman should not cohabit at her post with her husband [particularly if he were] a man of letters or a craftsman of any sort ... We live in a changing world, and no-one can say how mankind will regard anything in 1959. Who would have foreseen in 1894 that in twenty-five years women would be made eligible for the House of Commons?