Hugh Clifford

Sir Hugh Charles Clifford (5 March 1866 – 18 December 1941) was a British colonial administrator who had held several governorships.

Early life Clifford was born in Roehampton, London, the sixth of the eight children of Major-General Sir Henry Hugh Clifford and his wife Josephine Elizabeth, née Anstice; his grandfather was Hugh Clifford, 7th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. Alongside his other books he wrote Farther India (the book title itself is referencing an old term referring to Southeast Asia) which chronicles European explorations and discoveries in Southeast Asia.

Personal life On 15 April 1896, Clifford married Minna à Beckett, the only child of Gilbert Arthur à Beckett. Before her death on 14 January 1907, they had one son and two daughters:

Hugh Gilbert Francis Clifford (1897–1916), who was killed on 1 July 1916, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, aged 19. Mary Agnes Philippa Clifford (1898–1978), who married Maj.-Gen. Sir Noel Galway Holmes, a son of Capt. Harry W. Holmes, in 1920. who married Maj. Cecil Edward Trafford, son of Edward Southwell Trafford and Hon. Eleanor Mary Petre (a daughter of the 12th Baron Petre), in 1925. CBE, daughter of Edward Bonham of Bramling, Kent, a British consul. A Catholic, she was the widow of Henry Philip Ducarel de la Pasture of Llandogo Priory, Monmouthshire. Clifford thus became stepfather to E. M. Delafield, author of the Provincial Lady series.

Clifford died peacefully on 18 December 1941 in his native Roehampton. His widow, Elizabeth, died on 30 October 1945.

In popular culture Clifford is briefly referred to in V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men. Though he was Colonial Secretary of Trinidad and Tobago (second in command to the Governor), in the book he is named as a former Governor of Isabella, a fictitious Caribbean island based on Trinidad. He was depicted by David Abraham in 2022 Malaysian epic Mat Kilau.

He was a friend of Joseph Conrad. In 1914, Conrad dedicated his novel “Chance” to Clifford, commenting that his “steadfast friendship is responsible for the existence of these pages”.

Honours Clifford was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1909, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 1921 Birthday Honours, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1926.

Publications A Dictionary of the Malay Language (1894–1902). Co-authored with Frank Swettenham, the dictionary, which was published in stages between 1894 and 1902, was abandoned after the letter 'G' as by then it had been made redundant by the publication of R.J. Wilkinson's A Malay English Dictionary. Studies in Brown Humanity: Being Scrawls and Smudges in Sepia, White, and Yellow (1898). Clifford, Hugh (1911) The Downfall of the Gods. Historical novel about the decline of the Khmer Empire in the 13th century AD. London, John Murray. Clifford, Hugh (1970) In a corner of Asia; being tales and impressions of men and things in the Malay Peninsula. Freeport, New York : Books for Libraries Press. Clifford, Hugh (1978) Journal of a mission to Pahang : 15 January to 11 April 1887. Honolulu : University of Hawaii, Southeast Asian Studies Program. Clifford, Hugh (1989) Saleh : a prince of Malaya. Singapore : Oxford University Press. Originally published: A prince of Malaya. New York : Harper & Brothers, 1926. Clifford, Hugh (1989) In Court and Kampung. Singapore : Graham Brash (Pte.) Ltd. First published as: East coast etchings. Singapore : Straits Times Press, 1896. Clifford, Hugh (1992) Report of an expedition into Trengganu and Kelantan in 1895. Kuala Lumpur : MBRAS. "First published in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, v. 34 pt. 1 in 1961" --T.p. verso. Clifford, Hugh (1993) At the court of Pelesu and other Malayan stories. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1993. First published as: Stories by Sir Hugh Clifford. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1966. "An expedition to Kelantan and Trengganu : 1895"--cover title.