Sir Evelyn Mountstuart Grant Duff KCMG (9 October 1863 – 19 September 1926) was a British diplomat who was stationed in Iran at a key moment, and was ambassador to Switzerland.
He was Secretary of Legation in Tehran 1903–06,[3] and in early 1903 took part in the special mission (headed by Lord Downe) deputized by the King to travel to Iran to present the Shah with the insignia of the Order of the Garter.
[4] In the summer of 1906 there was no minister (ambassador) in post – the previous minister, Sir Arthur Hardinge, had left in 1905 and the new minister, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, although appointed in December 1905,[5] did not leave England until September 1906[6] – so Grant Duff was the senior British diplomat in Tehran when, during the Persian Constitutional Revolution, about 12,000 men took sanctuary (bast) in the gardens of the British Legation in what has been called a 'vast open-air school of political science' studying constitutionalism.
[7] The Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, was outraged by Grant Duff's hospitality towards the bastis which, however, inadvertently expedited the Constitutional Revolution.
She was appointed a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in 1916[15] and CBE in 1918 as "Founder and Organiser of the Bread Bureau for Prisoners of War.