Harry Luke

The Honourable Sir Harry Charles Luke KCMG GCStJ

Acting High Commissioner for Palestine
In office 31 July 1928 – 6 December 1928
Monarch	George V
Preceded by	Lord Onslo Plumer
Succeeded by	John Chancellor
14th High Commissioner for the Western Pacific
In office 16 September 1938 – 21 July 1942
Monarch	George VI
Preceded by	Arthur Richards
Succeeded by	Philip Euen Mitchell
15th Governor of Fiji
In office 16 September 1938 – 21 July 1942
Monarch	George VI
Preceded by	Arthur Richards
Succeeded by	Philip Euen Mitchell
Personal details
Born	Harry Charles Lukach December 1884 London
Died	11 May 1969(1969-05-11) (aged 84) Cyprus
Resting place	Conventual church of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell, London.
Nationality	British
Spouse(s)	Joyce Evelyn Fremlin 1918-1949 (divorced)
Relations	Peter Luke (son)
Children	2 sons
Alma mater	Oxford
Occupation	Naval officer, author, colonial administrator

Sir Harry Charles Luke KCMG GCStJ (born Harry Charles Lukach)^[1] (December 1884 - 11 May 1969)^[2] was an official in the British Colonial Office. He served in Barbados, Cyprus, Transcaucasia, Sierra Leone, Palestine, Malta, the British Western Pacific Territories and Fiji. He is the author of some books on several of these countries.

Biography

His father, J.H. Luke (né Lukács)^[3] was an Austro-Hungarian, but later acquired American citizenship; his mother was a Polish Catholic of the minor nobility.

He was born in London in 1884 and educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Oxford, of which he became an Honorary Fellow in 1952.

Luke's first official appointment was as Private Secretary (1908) and Aide-de-Camp in Barbados, except for a period during May–July when he was attached to the Colonial Office. He served as Private Secretary to the High Commissioner of Cyprus (1911–1912) and as Commissioner of Famagusta (1918–1920).

From 1909 to 1911 he was also second lieutenant in the London Yeomanry.

During World War I, he served as Commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on the Syrian Coast, and as a Political Officer on the staff of Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss; for his services he was awarded the Italian medal for military valour.

In 1919 he was appointed Political Officer to the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir John de Robeck.

In 1920 he spent six months (from April to September) as British Chief Commissioner in Transcaucasia (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan).

In 1921, he was assistant Governor of Jerusalem and was appointed a member of the Haycraft Commission, which was established by Sir Herbert Samuel to investigate the cause of the riot which started in Jaffa on 1 May that year, and into the affairs of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.^[4]

From 1924 to 1928 he held the post of Colonial Secretary of Sierra Leone.

He was subsequently appointed to be the acting High Commissioner to the Government of Palestine. He assumed this position on 19 July 1928 and held it until 6 December 1928.

In August 1929, acting as deputy to Sir John Robert Chancellor, he attempted to mediate an agreement between Jewish and Arab leaders, without success.

Later he was Lieutenant Governor of Malta (1930–1938) and Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the British Western Pacific Territories from 16 September 1938 to 21 July 1942.

On his retirement from the Colonial Service, in 1943, he was for three years Chief Representative of the British Council in the Caribbean.

He died in Cyprus, where he often spent the winter, on 11 May 1969.

Family

Luke married, in 1918, Joyce Evelyn Fremlin, the daughter of Henry James Leigh Fremlin and his wife, Maud Evelyn Deane (marriage dissolved by divorce in 1949). They had two sons, Peter Ambrose Cyprian ("Peter") Luke, born in 1919, and Michael Charles Deane ("Michael") Luke, born in 1925.^[5]

Honours

CMG (1926), Knight (1933), Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (1939)

Luke's published works

The Fringe of the East. Journey through Past and Present Provinces of Turkey, (Macmillan & Co), 1913 (First published under the name Harry Charles Lukach)
The City of the Dancing Dervishes, 1914
Cypriote Shrines, (Faith Press), 1920
The Handbook of Cyprus (London), 1920 (together with D.J. Jardine)
Cyprus under the Turks 1571-1878, (Oxford University Press), 1921
Report of the commission appointed by the government of Palestine to inquire into the affairs of the orthodox partiarchate of Jerusalem, 1921 (together with Anton Bertram)
The handbook of Palestine, 1922 (together with Edward Keith Roach)
Anatolica, (London), 1924
Mosul and its minorities, 1925
Prophets, Priests and Patriarchs: sketches of the sects of Palestine and Syria, 1927
In the Margin of History, 1933
An Eastern Checkerboard, 1934
More Moves on an Eastern Checkerboard, 1935
The Making of Modern Turkey, (Macmillan & Co), 1936
The British Pacific islands, 1944
From a South Seas Diary, 1938-1942, 1945
"Aden", in: The British Empire, by Hector Bolitho, 1948.
Malta, an account and an appreciation, 1949
Caribbean Circuit, 1950
Aegean, Cyprus, Turkey, Transcaucasia and Palestine (1914-1924), 1953
Cities and Men: an autobiography - Vols. 1 & 2, 1953
Queen Salote and her Kingdom, 1954
The Tenth Muse: A Gourmet's Compendium, 1954 (a cookery book)
The Old Turkey and the New: from Byzantium to Ankara, 1955 (First published in 1936 under the title The Making of Modern Turkey)
Cities and Men: an autobiography, Vol. 3, 1956
Cyprus: a Portrait and an Appreciation, (Harrap), 1957

Government offices
Preceded by Herbert Onslow Plumer	High Commissioner of Palestine (acting) 1928	Succeeded by Sir John Robert Chancellor
Preceded by Sir Arthur Frederick Richards	High Commissioner for the Western Pacific 1938–1942	Vacant Title next held by Sir Alexander Grantham
Preceded by Sir Arthur Frederick Richards	Governor of Fiji 1938–1942	Succeeded by Sir Philip Euen Mitchell

Notes

↑ Americanized spelling of the Hungarian (Lukács), from the personal name Lukács, Hungarian form of Lucas (English: Luke).
↑ "Sir Harry Luke Collection" (PDF). Retrieved 15 August 2015.
↑ Sir Harry Luke Collection
↑ Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with correspondence relating thereto .. (1921), by the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry
↑ Sir Harry Luke Collection. Births registered in St Albans Registration District in the third quarter of 1919 and second quarter of 1925. Lady Luke married, secondly, Harold Anthany Shadforth, and died in Cape Town in 1973 - see eGGSA Library SHADFORTH Harold Anthany 1892-1983 & Joyce Evelyn FREMLIN 1894-1973.

References

Holland, Robert (September 2004). "Luke, Sir Harry Charles (1884–1969)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34629. Retrieved 17 April 2009.

External links

Governors of Fiji

Sir Hercules Robinson Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon Sir William Des Vœux Sir Charles Mitchell Sir John Bates Thurston Sir George Thomas Michael O'Brien Sir William Allardyce Sir Henry Moore Jackson Sir Everard im Thurn Sir Charles Henry Major Sir Francis Henry May Sir Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott Sir Cecil Hunter-Rodwell Sir Eyre Hutson Sir Murchison Fletcher Sir Cecil Barton Sir Arthur Richards Sir Harry Luke Sir Philip Euen Mitchell Sir John Rankine John Ferns Nicoll Sir Alexander Grantham Sir Brian Freeston Sir Ronald Garvey Sir Kenneth Maddocks Sir Derek Jakeway Sir Robert Sidney Foster

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 37013264 ISNI: 0000 0000 8115 7579 GND: 120517299 SUDOC: 033695563 BNF: cb124536743 (data)

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