Henry_Cecil_Prescott

Henry Cecil Prescott

Henry Cecil Prescott

British Army officer (1882-1960)

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).[1][2]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

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.[3][4] He was educated at Bedford Modern School.[2]

Career

Prescott was commissioned in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and served as a lieutenant in the Second Boer War (1901–02), for which he received the Queen's Medal with five clasps.[2] While in South Africa, he received a commission in a regular regiment when he was appointed second lieutenant in The South Wales Borderers on 30 April 1902.[5] He stayed there for several months after the end of hostilities, returning home again on the SS Norman in late December 1902.[6] In 1903 he transferred to the Indian Army in the 69th Punjabis[7] until his appointment as Assistant Superintendent in the Burma Police in January 1908.[8] In December 1910 he was made District Superintendent of three districts in Burma.[8]

At the outbreak of World War I, Prescott rejoined the Indian Army; he was promoted Major in August 1916.[9] In June 1917 he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Iraq Police firstly in Basra and then in Baghdad.[9] In 1918 he was made Commissioner.[9] In 1920, Prescott was made Inspector-General of the Iraq Police until his resignation in 1935.[1][10] 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’.[9]

Prescott was later made Chief of Police of the Southern Railway in India for 12 years until his retirement in 1947.[1]

Awards and honours

During World War I he was mentioned in despatches and made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1919.[2] In 1926 he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), and towards the end of his service in Iraq he received the Order of the Two Rivers 2nd Class.[2] A collection of his medals were sold at auction on 2 March 2005.[11]

Family life

A keen polo player, Prescott was in the championship team of Iraq for 1933, 1934 and 1935.[9] He married Mary Augusta, daughter of Edward Chisholm.[1] They had two sons, one of whom was killed on active service in 1939.[1] Prescott eventually retired to St. Peter's, Jersey where he died on 3 August 1960.[9][12][13]

References

  1. [1]
    Obituary, The Times, Lt.-Col. H. C. Prescott, 5 August 1960, p.12
  2. [2]
    "Prescott, Lieut-Col Henry Cecil, (1882–3 Aug. 1960), Chief of Police, retired, Southern Railway; Indian Army, retired, 1928". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U241967. ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1.
  3. [3]
    "Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.co.uk". ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  4. [4]
    Ranieval, The Marquis of Ruvigny and (1 May 2013). The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: The Mortimer-Percy Volume. Heritage Books. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-7884-1872-3.
  5. [5]
    "No. 27429". The London Gazette. 29 April 1902. pp. 2862–2863.
  6. [6]
    "The Army in South Africa - Troops returning Home". The Times. No. 36960. London. 25 December 1902. p. 6.
  7. [7]
    "Harts Annual Army List, Militia List, and Imperial Yeomanry List, 1907". Mocavo. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  8. [8]
    "The India Office and Burma Office List". google.co.uk. 1928. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  9. [9]
    "Lot 984, Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to incl... (2 March 2005) – Dix Noonan Webb". dnw.co.uk. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  10. [10]
    "Prescott, Lieut-Col Henry Cecil, (1882–3 Aug. 1960), Chief of Police, retired, Southern Railway; Indian Army, retired, 1928". PRESCOTT, Henry Cecil (1882–1960), Chief of Police, retired, Southern Railway; Indian Army, retired, 1928. December 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U241967. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  11. [11]
    "Lot 984, Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to incl... (2 March 2005) – Dix Noonan Webb". dnw.co.uk. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  12. [12]
    "Jersey Heritage – Details". jerseyheritage.org. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  13. [13]
    Who Was Who, Published by A&C Black Limited, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014; online edn, April 2014
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Henry_Cecil_Prescott, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.