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Gilbert Clayton

British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator (1875–1929)

Summary

British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator (1875–1929)

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Brigadier-General
name	Sir Gilbert Clayton
honorific_suffix
image	Gilbert Clayton in 1925.jpg
caption	Clayton in 1925
office	High Commissioner for Iraq and Commander-in-Chief therein
term_start	11 April 1929
term_end	11 September 1929
predecessor	Sir Henry Dobbs
successor	Sir Francis Humphrys
birth_date
birth_place	Ryde, Isle of Wight
death_date
death_place	Baghdad, Iraq
occupation	British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator
allegiance	United Kingdom
branch	British Army
rank	Brigadier-General
unit	Royal Artillery
battles	Mahdist War
First World War
mawards	Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Companion of the Order of the Bath

Grave of Sir Gilbert Clayton Ma'Asker Cemetery Baghdad Iraq 2025

First World War Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companion of the Order of the Bath

Clayton (standing, fourth to left), at meeting with church leaders in Jerusalem, 1922

Brigadier-General Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton, (6 April 1875 – 11 September 1929) was a British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator, who worked in several countries in the Middle East in the early 20th century. In Egypt, during World War I as an intelligence officer, he supervised those who worked to start the Arab Revolt. In Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia, in the 1920s as a colonial administrator, he helped negotiate the borders of the countries that later became Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Early life

Born in Ryde, Isle of Wight, Clayton was the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel William Lewis Nicholl Clayton, and his wife, Maria Martha Pilkington. He was educated at the Isle of Wight College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He become an officer in the Royal Artillery in October 1895. He was part of the forces sent to the Sudan during the closing stages of the Mahdist War, seeing action in the Battle of Atbara (1898). He then served in Egypt, but in 1910 he retired and left the army to work as private secretary to the Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Francis Reginald Wingate.

First World War

During the First World War, Clayton worked in army intelligence in Cairo, Egypt, serving in the newly formed Arab Bureau. In 1914, he sent a secret memorandum to Lord Kitchener, suggesting that Britain work with the Arabs to overthrow their Ottoman rulers. He became Director of Intelligence, and was promoted to temporary brigadier general and later to lieutenant general, dated 7 October 1917. In this role, he worked with many of the people that helped to trigger the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks.

In Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935), T. E. Lawrence described Clayton's role as chief of British intelligence in Egypt between 1914 and 1917:

Colonial administration

Following the war, Clayton worked as an advisor for the Egyptian government, and then in the colonial administration of the British Mandate of Palestine. He was Civil Secretary of Palestine from 1922 to 1925, at which point he was briefly acting High Commissioner. He was then involved in negotiations with Arab rulers for the Treaty of Jeddah (1927); he was an envoy to the Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejd, tasked to undertake a mission to Yemen to negotiate with its ruler Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din. From 1928, he was High Commissioner for the British Mandate of Mesopotamia (Iraq). Clayton was involved in negotiations for a new Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. His unexpected death, from a heart attack, delayed matters, but the new treaty was eventually signed in 1930.

Personal life

Clayton's younger brother, Iltyd Nicholl Clayton, was also a British Army officer.

In 1912, Clayton married Enid Caroline Thorowgood in London, with the ceremony being conducted by Llewellyn Henry Gwynne, the Bishop of Khartoum. They had five children, but, as the family accompanied him to his appointments, two of them died, one from pneumonic plague. His daughter Patience (later Marshall), who suffered from bubonic plague as a child, studied at Cambridge and went on to gain an OBE for her work as a magistrate and with young offenders. His son John went into medicine, becoming the doctor for Eton College and "Surgeon Apothecary to the Royal Household at Windsor", in which capacity he treated the Queen Mother when she got a fishbone stuck in her throat. in 1982. His other son, Sam, married Lady Mary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Queen Mother's sister Rose Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville; their son is Bertie Clayton and daughter is Rosie Stancer, polar explorer.

On 11 September 1929, Gilbert Clayton succumbed to the consequences of a heart attack in Baghdad at the age of 54. His widow and their three remaining children moved back to England, first to Doddington, Lincolnshire, and then to a grace and favour flat at Hampton Court.

Positions

Clayton held the following positions:

1914–1916 – Director of Military Intelligence, British Army Headquarters, Cairo
1916–1917 – Brigadier General, General Staff, Military Operations, Hejaz
1917–1919 – Chief Political Officer, Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Military Governor, Palestine (O.E.T.A. South)
1919–1922 – Adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior
1922–1925 – Civil Secretary to the Palestine Government
1925–1925 – Acting British High Commissioner for Palestine (British Mandate of Palestine)
1925–1928 – Envoy to the Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejd
1926 – Special Envoy to Yahya ibn Muhammad Hamid ad-Din, Imam of the Yemen
1927 – Special Envoy to Rome
1929 – British High Commissioner to the Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate of Mesopotamia)

Honours

1914 – Third Class of the Imperial Ottoman Order of the Medjidieh
1915 – Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George
1916 – Officer of the Legion of Honour
1917 – Companion of the Order of the Bath
1917 – 2nd Class, Order of St. Stanislaus
1917 - Officer of the Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus
1919 – Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
1921 - Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile
1926 – Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George "For services rendered in concluding agreements with the Sultan of Nejd and for the conduct of a mission to the Imam of the Yemen."
1929 - Officer of the Order of St John

References

Bibliography

References

{{Harvnb. Collins. 1969
{{Harvnb. Collins. 1969
{{London Gazette. (12 November 1895)
{{London Gazette. (12 March 1918)
[http://www.al-bab.com/bys/articles/shipman01.htm The Clayton mission to Sana'a of 1926] {{Webarchive. link. (5 February 2010 , the British-Yemeni Society, accessed 25 January 2010)
{{Harvnb. Collins. 1969
[http://www.answers.com/topic/gilbert-clayton Gilbert Clayton], Jenab Tutunji, Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, August 2004
[http://www.dsthorne.com/family_notable.html#gfc Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton CMG CB KBE KCMG (1875–1929)] {{Webarchive. link. (23 October 2020 , dsthorne.com, accessed 25 January 2010)
(2004). "Clayton, Sir Gilbert Falkingham (1875–1929), army officer and colonial administrator".
(20 March 2009). "Patience Marshall". The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald.
(20 March 2009). "Magistrate Patience dies at 95". www.expressandstar.com.
(19 February 2016). "Dr John Clayton – obituary".
{{Harvnb. Collins. 1969
"Clayton, Gilbert Falkington".
{{London Gazette. (21 April 1914)
{{London Gazette. (23 June 1915)
{{London Gazette. (30 May 1916)
{{London Gazette. (10 August 1917)
{{London Gazette. (31 Aug 1917)
{{London Gazette. (6 June 1919)
{{London Gazette. (14 October 1921)
{{London Gazette. (6 July 1926)
{{London Gazette. (1 January 1929)

Wikipedia Source

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