Frederic John Napier THESIGER (1868-1933)

Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford (1868-1933), a British statesman, was Viceroy of India from 1916-1921.  It was under his name that four telegrams were sent from the War Office in 1916 regarding Cyril Sladden’s injuries in battle.

Frederic Thesiger was born on 12th August 1868, the son of the 2nd Baron Chelmsford.  In 1893 he was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple to practice law. He joined the army as a Captain in the Dorset Regiment, 4th Battalion.  On 9th April 1905 he succeeded to the tile of 3rd Baron Chelmsford upon his father’s death.

Chelmsford served as Governor of Queensland from 1905 to 1909 and Governor of New South Wales from 1909 to 1913.  On the outbreak of war in 1914 he rejoined his regiment and was posted to India.  On 29th February 1916 he was appointed to the Privy Council.  Rising quickly, he was appointed Viceroy in March 1916, succeeding Lord Hardinge.

His time as Viceroy was marked with consistent calls for self-government, which Chelmsford agreed to.  Together with the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Samuel Montagu, he was responsible for the creation of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, which gave greater authority to local Indian representative bodies and paved the way for a free India.

One of the privileges of Viceroy was that, in Simla, he was only one of three people permitted to drive in a carriage or motor, as Cyril explained in a letter to his father on 15th June 1916.

Chelmsford was married to Frances Charlotte Guest; they had two sons and four daughters.  His eldest son was killed in Mesopotamia in 1917.  On his return to Britain in 1921, he was elevated to Viscount as 1st Viscount Chelmsford of Chelmsford.

Viscount Chelmsford died on 1st April 1933.

The explorer and travel writer, Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) was his nephew; one of his most famous books, “The Marsh Arabs” (1964), was about the Iraqi marshmen who lived in the area between Basra and Kut which both Thesiger Junior and Cyril Sladden would have travelled through during the Mesopotamian campaign.