Gilbert Clayton

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. 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.

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. He was buried with full military honours at the Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery. 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