Born on 21 July 1929,[1] Trevelyan attended University College, Oxford, before he entered HM Civil Service in 1950 as an official in the Home Office.
The same paper, however, called Trevelyan "an enlightened, efficient and reforming director-general", but noted that "even he found himself unable to overcome the combined forces of governmental timidity, departmental and judicial conservatism, prison officer resistance and, not least, the inexorably rising crime rate".
[6] During his tenure, which ended in 1989, he "actively upheld the vetting of Whitehall appointments to ensure that they were made on the basis of fair and open competition".
[7] He protested against Michael Heseltine's appointment of Peter Levene as a procurement official in the Ministry of Defence, insisting successfully that the Commission had to review his credentials first.
[2] During that time, Trevelyan was credited with leading the effort to make Mansfield a Full College of the University of Oxford.