Michael Adeane, Baron Adeane

Michael Edward Adeane, Baron Adeane, (30 September 1910 – 30 April 1984) was Private Secretary to Elizabeth II for 19 years, between 1953 and 1972.

Early life and education
Adeane was the son of Captain Henry Robert Augustus Adeane (1882–1914), by his wife Hon. Victoria Eugenie Bigge (d.1969). His paternal grandfather was Admiral Edward Stanley Adeane, from a family of landed gentry tracing their ancestry to a Simon Adeane who died in 1686; his maternal grandfather was Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria and King George V. Adeane was educated at Eton College and graduated from Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1934 with a Master of Arts degree.

Career
After graduating, Adeane travelled to Canada. He was aide-de-camp to Lord Bessborough, Governor General of Canada from 1934 to 1935, and then to his successor, Lord Tweedsmuir, until 1936.

Adeane then returned to Britain and became George VI's Assistant Private Secretary from 1945 after five-and-a-half years on active military duty, a post he held until the latter's death in 1952. He continued in that post for Queen Elizabeth until 1953 when he was promoted to Private Secretary and admitted to the Privy Council.

In 1961, during a Royal visit to Nepal, Adeane was credited with a share of a tiger kill with Sir Christopher Bonham-Carter in a royal tiger hunt. The tiger-shooting role had fallen to him after the Queen had declined, the Duke of Edinburgh had been unable to shoot due to having his trigger finger in a splint, and the then Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home had missed twice.

Personal life
On 10 January 1939 Adeane married Helen Chetwynd-Stapleton (1916 – 1994), and they had a daughter and a son. Their son, Edward Adeane, a barrister, was Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales from 1979 to 1984.

On 30 April 1984 Adeane died of heart failure in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.

Honours
Adeane was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1946, a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1947, he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1951, and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1955. In 1962 he was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and in 1968 to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB).

In 1959, Adeane received the Grand Decoration in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria and on 20 April 1972, he was created a life peer as Baron Adeane, of Stamfordham in the County of Northumberland.