Thomas Kingston was clearly a special man. It is proven by the range of important offices he filled in his life. But it is also clear from what people say about him, that he was a tender and truly brilliant individual – a man of unique personal qualities, beyond the impressive career he enjoyed.
One of the most distinctive features of his life was the time Kingston spent on the ground in Iraq, after the 2003 invasion, where he was a kind and intuitive pair of hands on diplomatic missions. Having graduated from Bristol University with a degree in economic history, Kingston joined the diplomatic missions unit for the Foreign Office in Iraq. During his time there, Kingston channelled his Christian faith and worked tirelessly to help Christian Iraqis rebuild their lives. He was based at the only Anglican church in Iraq, St George’s, Baghdad, a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s.
At the church, Kingston worked very closely with Reverend Canon Andrew White, who oversaw activities at St George’s. During his time there, he narrowly avoided a suicide bombing that killed 22 people. On the occasion of his wedding in 2019 to Lady Gabriella Windsor, Reverend White described Kingston as ‘an exceptional young man’. Speaking to the Daily Mail, White described how he and Kingston had been bound together by their steadfast Christian faith and how Kingston had supported him in growing the church’s following to over 6,500 congregants.
White said: ‘We survived some close scrapes. They were a daily occurrence.’ He added that Kingston used his ‘fierce determination to make things succeed and great insight into what makes humans tick, both good and bad’ to ‘see beyond the impossible and get through to the other side’. He characterised him as ‘one of the most remarkable people I have ever worked with’. White’s is not the only account of Kingston that sketches him as such an intuitive, compassionate and hard working character. Kingston’s work in Iraq also included high-stakes hostage negotiations and dispute resolution between warring ethnic, religious and tribal groups.