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Horace Byatt

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Sir
Horace Byatt
GCMG
Sir Horace (Archer) Byatt by Bassano. Whole-plate glass negative, 15 August 1922
Commissioner of British Somaliland
In office
July 1911 – 1914
Preceded byWilliam Henry Manning
Succeeded byGeoffrey Francis Archer
Governor of Tanganyika
In office
22 July 1920 – 20 July 1922
Preceded byHeinrich Schnee
(German East Africa)
Succeeded byDonald Cameron
Governor of Trinidad and Tobago
In office
22 November 1924 – 1929
Preceded bySamuel Herbert Wilson
Succeeded byAlfred Claud Hollis
Personal details
Born22 March 1875
Tottenham, Middlesex, United Kingdom
Died8 April 1933(1933-04-08) (aged 58)
London, United Kingdom
SpouseOlga Margaret Campbell

Sir Horace Archer Byatt GCMG (22 March 1875[1] – 8 April 1933)[2] was a British colonial governor. In the early part of his career he served in Nyasaland, British Somaliland, Gibraltar and Malta. Later, he served in British East Africa, becoming the first governor of the British mandate of Tanganyika. He was then the governor of Trinidad and Tobago.

Biography

[edit]

Byatt was born 22 March 1875 in Tottenham, Middlesex to schoolmaster Horace Byatt M.A., of Midhurst, Sussex (where he was taught by H. G. Wells at Midhurst Grammar School),[3] and Laura (née Archer).[4] He attended Lincoln College, Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1898.[4] Following university, he began a career in the Colonial Service. In 1898 he began working in Nyasaland (what is now Malawi), and in 1905, he went to British Somaliland. He was appointed commissioner and commander-in-chief of British Somaliland in 1911, serving until 1914, when he became Colonial Secretary in Gibraltar.[4] From 1914 to 1916 he was lieutenant-governor and Colonial Secretary of Malta.[5]

From 1916 he was an administrator in British East Africa, and in 1920 he became the first governor of the new British mandate of Tanganyika.[6] In Tanganyika he was responsible for the transfer of power between the Germans and the British, following World War I. Byatt was noted as a liberal governor with sympathies towards African interests.[7] He was given instructions that the territory was to be governed "in the interests of the Africans" and he was said to have "really taken those instructions to heart."[8] As a result of this his administration gained a reputation for being humane.[9] Byatt would not enforce any rule in the territory that he did not believe was helpful to the territory's African majority, nor would he allow "any non-African interest" to take precedence over that of the territory's African population.[10] After a French visitor, Pierre Marbois, "carelessly" ignored the advice of a guide and was mauled by a leopard in front of Byatt, Byatt "always took care to be cautious around wildlife." Byatt was also said to be "very fond of watching the elephants," though he did not hunt them, he merely liked to observe them.[11] He was also governor and commander in chief of Trinidad and Tobago between 1924 and 1929.[12]

Personal life

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He married Olga Margaret Campbell of Argyll in 1924 and they had three sons:[13]

Byatt died 8 April 1933 in London, aged 58.[4]

Byatt's bush squirrel (Paraxerus vexillarius var. byatti), a rodent endemic to Tanzania, was named after Byatt.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Horace Archer Byatt. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38477. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Past Governor of Trinidad and Tobago Sir Horace Byatt".
  3. ^ Experiment in Autobiography. Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain, H. G. Wells, 1934, p. 108
  4. ^ a b c d Furley, Oliver (2004). "Byatt, Sir Horace Archer (1875–1933)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38477.
  5. ^ "No. 29011". The London Gazette. 18 December 1914. p. 10815.
  6. ^ Taylor, James Clagett (1963). The Political Development of Tanganyika. Stanford University Press. pp. 43. ISBN 0-8047-0147-4.
  7. ^ Mohiddin, Ahmed (1981). African Socialism in two Countries. Taylor & Francis. p. 42. ISBN 0-389-20170-7.
  8. ^ Sir Horace Archer Byatt: The Assertion and Consolidation of British Colonial Rule in Tanganyika Territory 1916-1924 by David Tyrrell Lloyd pg. 59
  9. ^ Sir Horace Archer Byatt: The Assertion and Consolidation of British Colonial Rule in Tanganyika Territory 1916-1924 by David Tyrrell Lloyd pg. 60
  10. ^ Sir Horace Archer Byatt: The Assertion and Consolidation of British Colonial Rule in Tanganyika Territory 1916-1924 by David Tyrrell Lloyd pg. 74
  11. ^ Sir Horace Archer Byatt: The Assertion and Consolidation of British Colonial Rule in Tanganyika Territory 1916-1924 by David Tyrrell Lloyd pg. 99-102
  12. ^ Hill, Robert A.; Garvey, Marcus (2006). The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: Africa for the Africans, 1923–1945. University of California Press. p. 462. ISBN 0-520-24732-9.
  13. ^ Dewar, Peter Beauclerk (2001). Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain. Burke's Peerage. p. 161. ISBN 0-9711966-0-5.
  14. ^ "Obituary: Sir Hugh Campbell Byatt KCVO CMG". The Scotsman. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
  15. ^ Europa Publications (2003). The International Who's Who 2004. Routledge. p. 257. ISBN 1-85743-217-7.
  16. ^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2009). The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals. JHU Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8018-9304-9.
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