Wyndham Deedes

Brigadier-General Sir Wyndham Henry Deedes, (10 March 1883 – 2 September 1956) was a British Army officer and civil administrator. He was the Chief Secretary to the British High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine.

Early life Deedes was born on 10 March 1883 in Kent, England. He was the youngest son of East Kent gentry, Colonel Herbert George Deedes, whose family had owned the land between Hythe and Ashford for four centuries, and his wife Rose Elinor Barrow.

The young Deedes was educated at Eton College, an all-boys boarding school in Berkshire. He was posted to South Africa where he fought in the Second Boer War. On 22 January 1906, Deedes was promoted to lieutenant and seconded to the Colonial Office. During this time he learned Turkish. By 1910 he had enough of a command of the language to satisfy a posting to Constantinople. While still a part of the British military he undertook the responsibility to reform the Ottoman Gendarmerie force from 1910 till the start of the World War I, he was an influential figure in Ottoman Interior Ministry.

During the First World War, Deedes saw service in Gallipoli, where he took part in the Gallipoli Campaign. Deedes was promoted to Major on 14 September 1916. On 1 January 1916, he was appointed Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) "for distinguished service in the field". In October 1916, he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, 4th Class (with Swords) by King Peter I of Serbia. On 21 March 1917, Deedes was promoted to temporary Lieutenant Colonel upon appointment as a General Staff Officer (1st Class) in the General Staff. On 3 June 1917, Deedes was awarded the rank of Brevet Colonel "for distinguished service in the field". During the war, he was honoured by the French Republic with the appointment to the Legion of Honour as a Chevalier.

Front row, left to right: Col. T. E. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond and Sir Wyndham Deedes in Palestine

After the war he was posted to Istanbul, Turkey, as a military attaché. He was posted to Cairo, Egypt, which was at that time a British protectorate, as public security director. Here he helped to set up the Palestine Police Force.

From 1920 to 1922, Deedes served as Chief Secretary to the then British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel in Palestine. There is a street named after him in the Emek Refaim neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel.

Later life Upon returning to England, Deedes did not take up his heritage as a country squire, but moved to London and chose to do unpaid social work in one of the poorest quarters of the city. During this time he became a councillor of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, served on the education committee, and became chairman of the London Council of Social Service. During the War, Deedes also became chief Air Raid Warden of his borough.

He died on 2 September 1956.

Reşat Nuri Güntekin. The Autobiography of a Turkish Girl (Çalıkuşu, 1922). London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949. Reşat Nuri Güntekin. Afternoon Sun (Akşam Güneşi, 1926). London: Heinemann, 1951. Mahmut Makal. A Village in Anatolia (Bizim Köy, 1950). London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1954.