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Vernon Kell
Major General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, (21 November 1873 – 27 March 1942) was a British Army general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. Known as K, he was described in ''Who's Who'' as "Commandant, War Department Constabulary". Early life Born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1873, Kell was the son of Major Waldegrave Kell of the 38th Foot and his wife, Georgiana Augusta Konarska, daughter of Samuel Alexander Ernest Konarski and Harriet Fraser Lucas. Military service After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Kell was commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment on 10 October 1894, and promoted to lieutenant on 15 December 1896. He was in January 1900 seconded for service in China, and fought in the Boxer Rebellion later that year. He could speak German, Italian, French and Polish with equal facility, and after serving and studying in China and Russia, he learned their respective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
38th Foot
The 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1705. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 80th Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers) to form the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1881. History Early years The regiment was first raised by Colonel Sir John Guise as Sir John Guise's Regiment of Foot in 1688 and then disbanded in England in 1694. It was raised a second time by General Luke Lillingston as Luke Lillingstone's Regiment of Foot with personnel from the previous regiment in 1694 and then disbanded in the West Indies in 1696. The regiment was raised a third time at Lichfield by General Luke Lillingston as Luke Lillingstone's Regiment of Foot in March 1705. It was ranked as the 38th regiment in 1747. It was posted to Ireland later in the year and then sent to the West Indies in 1707. On 1 July 1751 a royal warrant was issued which provided that in future regiments would no longer be known by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Edward Boketon Holt-Wilson
Brigadier-General Sir Eric Edward Boketon Holt-Wilson (26 August 1875 – 26 March 1950) was a British Army officer who left the army to join the nascent British Security Service (MI5), which developed in time to deal with espionage during World War I. He became the Service's deputy to Sir Vernon Kell, serving through to the beginning of World War II. Family life Born in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1875, Holt-Wilson was the son of Reverend Thomas Holt-Wilson and his wife Helen Emily Greene, daughter of Edward Greene. He was educated at Harrow School from 1887 to 1892. He was married twice, firstly to Susannah Mary Shaw in 1903 and secondly Audrey Stirling in 1931. Military service Holt-Wilson attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1893 to 1895, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 3 August 1895, and promoted to lieutenant on 3 August 1898. He joined 7 Field Regiment, Royal Engineers and was posted to South Africa 1899–1902. On re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basil Thomson
Sir Basil Home Thomson, (21 April 1861 – 26 March 1939) was a British colonial administrator and prison governor, who was head of Metropolitan Police CID during World War I. This gave him a key role in arresting wartime spies, and he was closely involved in the prosecution of Mata Hari, Sir Roger Casement and many Irish and Indian nationalists. His equating of Jews with Bolshevism led to accusations of anti-semitism. Thomson was also a successful novelist. Early life Thomson was born in Oxford, where his father, William Thomson (who would later become Archbishop of York), was provost of The Queen's College. Thomson was educated at Worsley's School in Hendon and Eton College, and then attended New College, Oxford, where a fellow undergraduate was Montague John Druitt, the man named as the prime suspect in the Jack the Ripper case by Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten in a Scotland Yard document dated 1894. (Thomson replaced Macnaghten as head of CID at Scotland Yard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had its main public entrance on the Westminster street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" came to be used not only as the common name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London. The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed building on the Victoria Embankment, and the name "New Scotland Yard" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Nathan (intelligence Officer)
Sir Robert Nathan (1868–1921) was a British intelligence official notable for his work against the Indian revolutionaries in Bengal, Britain and North America. Early career in India Nathan was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, before joining the Indian Civil Service in 1888. He was appointed secretary of the Indian Universities Commission in 1902, for which he was created a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1903 Durbar Honours. In 1905, he was asked to become Private Secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, but only two years later, in 1907 Nathan was made Chief Secretary to the Government of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and Commissioner of Dhaka Police. In 1908, Nathan, then the Police Commissioner of Dhaka, was responsible along with the district collector H.L. Salkeld for uncovering the revolutionary organisation of the ''Anushilan Samiti'', and for instituting the measures to suppress the organisation. Return to Britain Nathan was appointed Vice Chance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindu–German Conspiracy
The Hindu–German Conspiracy (Note on the name) were a series of attempts between 1914 and 1917 by Indian nationalist groups to create a pan-Indian rebellion against the British Empire during World War I. This rebellion was formulated between the Indian revolutionary underground and exiled or self-exiled nationalists in the United States. It also involved the Ghadar Party, and in Germany the Indian independence committee in the decade preceding the Great War. The conspiracy began at the start of the war, with extensive support from the German Foreign Office, the German consulate in San Francisco, and some support from Ottoman Turkey and the Irish republican movement. The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Singapore. It was to be executed in February 1915, and overthrow British rule in the Indian subcontinent. The February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MI5(g)
The MI5(g), or the MI5 G section, was a branch of MI5 that was formed during World War I to address the wartime espionage operation by the Indian revolutionary movement in Europe. The department arose by renaming the MO5(g) MI5(g) in 1916. The MI5 itself, working under Vernon Kell, had a number of India experts at the beginning of the war. In September 1916, a special section, the MI5(d), was formed to operate counter-espionage networks throughout the British Empire. Another subsection, the MI5(b), was formed in January 1917 to deal specifically with Indians and "other oriental races". The MI5(g) had 27 officers in its staff, eight of whom had served in India before the war. Among them were ex-Indian civil servants including Robert Nathan and H. L. Stephenson. The main emphasis of this counter-espionage network was to prevent the subversion of Indian troops in the European theatre. The organisation, especially under Nathan, worked closely with the Special Branch of the Scotlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mansfield Smith-Cumming
Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming (1 April 1859 – 14 June 1923) was a British naval officer who served as the first Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Origins He was a great-great-grandson of the prominent merchant John Smith, a director of both the South Sea Company and the East India Company, the second son of Abel Smith (1717–1788), Abel Smith (d. 1756), the Nottingham banker who founded a banking dynasty and whose business much later became National Westminster Bank, now one of the largest banks in the United Kingdom.J. Leighton Boyce, ''Smith's the Bankers 1658–1958'' (1958). His father was Colonel John Thomas Smith of the Madras Royal Engineers who became Master of the Madras and India Government Mint, Kolkata, Calcutta Mints and designed a machine for minting coins that was displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851.A. Judd, ''The Quest for C'' (1999). Early naval career Smith join ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Office
The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at which point its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from this source, which is available under th Open Government Licence v3.0 © Crown copyright It was equivalent to the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty at that time, which was responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and (much later) the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'Old War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than British pound, £350 million, on a 250-year lease for conversion int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain (British Army And Royal Marines)
Captain (Capt) is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines and in both services it ranks above Lieutenant (British Army and Royal Marines), lieutenant and below Major (United Kingdom), major with a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant (British Army and Royal Marines), lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. The rank of Captain (Royal Navy), captain in the Royal Navy is considerably more senior (equivalent to the Army/RM rank of colonel) and the two ranks should not be confused. In the 21st-century British Army, captains are often appointed to be second-in-command (2IC) of a Company (military unit), company or equivalent sized unit of up to 120 soldiers. History A rank of second captain existed in the Ordnance at the time of the Battle of Waterloo. From 1 April 1918 to 31 July 1919, the Royal Air Force maintained the junior officer rank of captain. RAF captains had a rank insignia based on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph and Courier''. ''The Telegraph'' is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", was included in its emblem which was used for over a century starting in 1858. In 2013, ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Telegraph'', which started in 1961, were merged, although the latter retains its own editor. It is politically conservative and supports the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. It was moderately Liberalism, liberal politically before the late 1870s.Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalismp 159 ''The Telegraph'' has had a number of news scoops, including the outbreak of World War II by rookie reporter Clare Hollingworth, desc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
