Hugh Norman-Walker

Hugh Norman-Walker

Sir Hugh Selby Norman-Walker, KCMG, KStJ, OBE (Traditional Chinese:羅樂民爵士, 17 December 1916 – 28 August 1985) was a British colonial official. He served in India from 1938 to 1948. Joining the Colonial Office in 1949, he successively served as an Administrative Officer and an Assistant Secretary in Nyasaland, and was seconded to the Cabinet Office of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953. He returned to Nyasaland to become Development Secretary in 1954, Deputy Financial Secretary in 1960 and Secretary to the Treasury in 1961. He remained in the government until 1965 when Nyasaland gained independence as Malawi in 1964. In 1965, Sir Hugh was posted to the Bechuanaland Protectorate as Her Majesty’s Commissioner. Knighted in 1966, in September of the same year he witnessed the independence of the Protectorate as Botswana. In the next year, Norman-Walker was posted to the Seychelles as the Governor and Commander-in-Chief but his short tenure came to an end when he was assigned to succeed Sir Michael Gass, who was in turn appointed High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, as Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong in 1969. He was once rumoured to be the designated candidate to succeed Sir David Trench as the Governor of Hong Kong, but the rumour soon died out when the post was taken up by Sir Murray MacLehose, a career diplomat, in 1971.

Sir Hugh was supposed to become the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man when his tenure in Hong Kong ended in 1973. However, when it became known that his wife would not accompany him, he was forced to decline the offer. Sir Hugh was not compensated with another post for his withdrawal. He spent his retirement in England and was appointed chairman of the Isle of Wight County Structure Plan Panel in 1976.