My friend Stephen Cox, who has died aged 77, was an unobtrusive, humorous, but very effective operator behind the scenes in many institutions.
He was director-general of the Commonwealth Institute when it still occupied its distinctive building in Kensington, London; chief executive of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, working to support emerging democracies around the world; and executive secretary of the Royal Society, following in the footsteps of Samuel Pepys, Edmund Halley and Robert Hooke.
