Sir
Henry Lovell Goldsworthy Gurney was born on 27th June 1898, in London.
He was the son of G.G.H. Gurney and Florence Gurney. Gurney was educated
at Wincester College and University College Oxford.
He served 60th Rifles (1917 - 1921) and posted as the Colonial servant
in Kenya (1921). He was the Assistant Colonial Secretary in Jamaica
(1935), Chief Secretary to the Conference of East Africa Governors (1938
- 1944), Colonial Secretary in Gold Coast (1944 - 1946), Chief Secretary
to the Palestine Mandate Government (1946 - 1948) and British High Commissioner
in Malaya (1948 - 1951), officially taking office on 13th September
1948. Gurney married to Lady Isabel Lowther Weir in 1924 and they have
two sons. On 1948, he received the Knight Commander of St. Michael and
St. George (KCMG), which is the second highest rank in the British Knighthood.
On 6th October 1951, he was shot death on his the way back to Fraser's
Hill; the guerrillas of the Malayan Communist Party ambushed his Roll
Royce, one of many indicdents during the Malayan Emergency period. Although
he had only served a short time in Malaya, his contributions to the
Malayans will always be remembered. He establsihed the Advanced Approved
School and Henry Gurney School in Malacca.
The
garden dedicated to Sir Henry Gurney is a short walk from the Commonwealth
War Graves Cemetery. It has its own fenced in garden with the dedication
stone as the centre piece.
Sir
Henry Gurney, whose death in a Malayan ambush on Saturday is reported
on another page, had been High Gomnmissioner for the Federation of Malaya
since September, 1948.
He
succeeded in this post Sir Edward Gent, who had been killed in an aircraft
accident in this country two months before, at a time when the situation
in Malaya was difficult and dangerous. Having spent much of his earlier
career discharging the comparatively routine duties of the Colonial
Service in Africa, and after two years as Chief Secretary to the Palestine
Government, be found himself called to a position requiring intiative,
judgment, and vision, and he proved himself worthy of the task entrusted
to him. He set about mobilizing the resources of the Federation to fight
alien Communist tendencies with vigour and determnination. He recognized
that it was not enough to increase the strength of the police and military
forces, but that it was also essential to unite the Malayan peoples—Malays,
Chinese, and Indian—-and to gain their fullest
support in fighting banditry. Towards this end he strove, and the steadily
increasing cooperation that the Federal Government has received is,
in no small measure, due to his work.
His
devotion to duty and his tact in facing the problems of the emergency,
won first the esteem, and then the confidence, of all good Malayans.
He preached with sincerity the gospel of a united Malaya, and watched
with sympathy and understanding the recent emergence of the Independence
of Malaya Party. Fearless and imperturbable, Sir Henry Gurney traveled
widely in the Federation seeing things for himself. A forthight ago,
accompanied by the Director of Operations, Sir Harold Briggs, he covered
150 miles in a single day, touring the resettlement areas in south-west
Selangor.
In
Palestine in September, 1946, as later in Malaya, he took up his duties
at a time when terrorist outrages were increasing. When the High Commissioner
for Palestine, Sir Alan Cunningham, came to this country for consultations
early in 1947, Sir Henry Gurney was left in charge of the admninistration
until his return. Through the difficult months that followged until
the end of the mandate and the evacuation of British troops, he and
the other members of the civil administration worked, sometimes in danger,
and often in the face of calumnies and imputations of partiality. The
Prime Minister, in a message to them on leaving Palestine, spoke highly
of their behaviour and of their “loyal pub'ic service.”
Henry
Lovell Goldsworthy Gurney was born on June 27, 1898, the only son of
Mr. G. H. Gurney, of Bude, Cornwall, and of Florence, daughter of Mr.
Edwin Frances Chamier. He went to Winchester College in 1912. After
leaving school he was commissioned in 1917 into the King's Royal Rifle
Corps and was wounded shortly before the Armistice. On his return to
civilian life he went up to Oxford as a scholar of University College,
representing the university at golf. In 1921 he entered the Colonial
Service and was posted to Kenya where he was to work for the next 14
years. In 1935 he was appointed assistant Colonial Secretary in Jamaica.
Three years later he was appointed chief secretary to the conference
of East African Governors, and secretary to the High Commissioner for
Transport in Kenya and Uganda. He was transferred to the Gold Coast
in 1944, succeeding Sir George London as Colonial Secretary, and in
September, 1946, came his appointment as Chief Sectetary to the Palestine
Government. A knighthood had been conferred on him in 1947. He was created
C.M.G. in 1942 and promoted K.C.M.G. in the year he was appointed High
Commissioner.
He
married in 1924 Isabel Lowther, daughter of Mr. T. Hamilton Weir, of
Bude. There are two sons of the marriage.
