Gilbert Clayton


Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton, was a British Army intelligence officer and colonial administrator, who worked in several countries in the Middle East in the early 20th century. In Egypt, during World War I as an intelligence officer, he supervised those who worked to start the Arab Revolt. In Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia, in the 1920s as a colonial administrator, he helped negotiate the borders of the countries that later became Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Early life

Born in Ryde, Isle of Wight, Clayton was the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel William Lewis Nicholl Clayton, and his wife, Maria Martha Pilkington. He was educated at the Isle of Wight College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He become an officer in the Royal Artillery in October 1895. He was part of the forces sent to the Sudan during the closing stages of the Mahdist War, seeing action in the Battle of Atbara. He then served in Egypt, but in 1910 he retired and left the army to work as private secretary to the Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Francis Reginald Wingate.

First World War

During the First World War, Clayton worked in army intelligence in Cairo, Egypt, serving in the newly formed Arab Bureau. In 1914, he sent a secret memorandum to Lord Kitchener, suggesting that Britain work with the Arabs to overthrow their Ottoman rulers. He became Director of Intelligence, and was promoted to temporary brigadier general and later to lieutenant general, dated 7 October 1917. In this role, he worked with many of the people that helped to trigger the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks.
In Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence described Clayton's role as chief of British intelligence in Egypt between 1914 and 1917:

Colonial administration

Following the war, Clayton worked as an advisor for the Egyptian government, and then in the colonial administration of the British Mandate of Palestine. He was Civil Secretary of Palestine from 1922 to 1925, at which point he was briefly acting High Commissioner. He was then involved in negotiations with Arab rulers for the Treaty of Jeddah ; he was an envoy to the Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejd, tasked to undertake a mission to Yemen to negotiate with its ruler Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din. From 1928, he was High Commissioner for the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. Clayton was involved in negotiations for a new Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. His unexpected death, from a heart attack, delayed matters, but the new treaty was eventually signed in 1930.

Personal life

Clayton's younger brother, Iltyd Nicholl Clayton, was also a British Army officer.
In 1912, Clayton married Enid Caroline Thorowgood in London, with the ceremony being conducted by Llewellyn Henry Gwynne, the Bishop of Khartoum. They had five children, but, as the family accompanied him to his appointments, two of them died, one from pneumonic plague. His daughter Patience, who suffered from bubonic plague as a child, studied at Cambridge and went on to gain an OBE for her work as a magistrate and with young offenders. His son John went into medicine, becoming the doctor for Eton College and "Surgeon Apothecary to the Royal Household at Windsor", in which capacity he treated the Queen Mother when she got a fishbone stuck in her throat. in 1982. His other son, Sam, married Lady Mary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Queen Mother's sister Rose Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville; their son is Bertie Clayton and daughter is Rosie Stancer, polar explorer.
On 11 September 1929, Gilbert Clayton succumbed to the consequences of a heart attack in Baghdad at the age of 54. His widow and their three remaining children moved back to England, first to Doddington, Lincolnshire, and then to a grace and favour flat at Hampton Court.

Positions

Clayton held the following positions: