Henry Cecil Prescott

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Cecil Prescott CMG CIE (1 March 1882 – 3 August 1960) was Inspector-General of Police in Iraq (1920–1935) and Chief of Police of the Southern Railway in India (1935–47).

Early life Henry Cecil Prescott was born in Cheshire on 1 March 1882, the son of Arthur Edward Prescott (who had died at the time of the 1891 census) and Kathleen Ann Augusta Prescott. He was educated at Bedford Modern School. He stayed there for several months after the end of hostilities, returning home again on the SS Norman in late December 1902. In 1903 he transferred to the Indian Army in the 69th Punjabis until his appointment as Assistant Superintendent in the Burma Police in January 1908. In December 1910 he was made District Superintendent of three districts in Burma. In June 1917 he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Iraq Police firstly in Basra and then in Baghdad. In a statement of service, he later wrote, ‘If it had not been for the seizing of power by the opposition (many of the leaders of whom I had arrested and placed in prison for the safety of the country) I should have remained in command for some years longer’.

Family life A keen polo player, Prescott was in the championship team of Iraq for 1933, 1934 and 1935.