Tracy Philipps
James Erasmus Tracy Philipps was a British public servant. Philipps was, in various guises, a soldier, colonial administrator, traveller, journalist, propagandist, conservationist, and secret agent. He served as a British Army intelligence officer in the East African and Middle Eastern theatre of the First World War, which led to brief stints in journalism and relief work in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War. Joining the Colonial Office, his reform-minded agenda as a District Commissioner in Colonial Uganda alienated superiors and soon resulted in the termination of his position.
He worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times in Eastern Europe, and spent much of the Second World War in Canada attempting to build support among ethnic minorities for British war objectives. Following a frustrating experience helping to resettle displaced persons as a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration official, and Cold War propaganda activities with the secretive Information Research Department, Philipps' attention was increasingly taken up by his longstanding interest in conservation.
In the final years of his life he led efforts to create African National Parks as Secretary-General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The product of an old, upper-class family, Philipps possessed determination and high self-esteem as well as a great deal of ambition – though his personal eccentricity sometimes undermined his goals.
Early life
Tracy Philipps was the only child of the Rev. John Erasmus Philipps, originally from Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and Margaret Louisa Everard. The elder Philipps had been vicar of Wiston in Pembrokeshire, and later held curacies in Enstone in Oxfordshire and Staindrop in County Durham, where he was domestic chaplain to the 9th Baron Barnard. After his death in 1923 his widow Margaret married Harold Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon. Tracy was born in Hillington, Norfolk, the traditional home of his wife's family.The younger Philipps enrolled at Abingdon School in May 1899. From September 1904 he boarded at Marlborough College, and left in December 1906. At Marlborough he played as a forward in inter-house rugby matches. In February 1907 he was one of a few dozen Old Marlburians accepted for membership of the Marlburian Club alumni association after a meeting of the club committee held in Old Queen Street, Westminster.
According to the Christmas 1907 edition of The Abingdonian magazine Philipps was still undecided about which university he would attend but was nonetheless 'endeavouring to obtain a scholarship at Jesus, Cambridge' – an effort that was ultimately unsuccessful. For university he is said to have eventually studied at Oxford for a period of time, although sources on this are unclear. What is known for certain is that he entered Durham University in 1910. Like his father and uncle, he was a member of Hatfield Hall and graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics. He was Secretary of Durham University Boat Club in 1911. He also served as President of the Durham Union for Epiphany term of 1912, and was Editor of The Sphinx – a student magazine with a lighthearted tone – in addition to participating in the Officers' Training Corps.
As the President of the Union during the seventieth anniversary of its foundation, he chaired an inter-varsity debate held on Saturday 16 March 1912 at the Great Hall of University College, which featured teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Trinity College, Dublin, and Edinburgh University.
Early career
First World War
After his time in the Officers' Training Corps at Durham, Philipps made his position in the British Army official. He was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Infantry in February 1913. He joined the Rifle Brigade but was soon sent to East Africa on secondment in an intelligence role. When the First World War broke out he was on attachment to the Kings African Rifles and was "one of the first Englishmen in action" when the war in Africa started in August 1914. Serving temporarily with the Indian Expeditionary Force B as an assistant intelligence officer alongside Richard Meinertzhagen, he was involved in the disastrous Battle of Tanga. He was later wounded while serving with the KAR and also present as a political officer at the Battle of Bukoba in June 1915. The next year Philipps was awarded a promotion to captain, effective from 17 January 1916. With the newly formed Lake Force he took part in the Tabora Offensive and in the aftermath was awarded the Military Cross, gazetted February 1917, which he received for actions in conjunction with an intelligence section of the Belgian Force Publique. From November 1916 to March 1917, Philipps, by now the chief political officer for the Uganda region, was based in Ruanda-Urundi, a part of German East Africa recently captured by the Belgians.A September 1917 entry in The London Gazette noted that Philipps relinquished his Army commission earlier in the year, with no explanation provided. This decision was due to injury: his entry in the 1951 Who's Who describes being 'invalided', indicating wounds had rendered him unfit for further duty, and is further confirmed by a letter sent by Philipps to Reginald Wingate which suggests he had returned to Britain in March. Philipps quickly recovered and restored his commission: he was employed at the War Office in London with the Intelligence Staff, June–August 1917; then was similarly employed at the Admiralty, August–October 1917. By November 1917 he was in Abyssinia on a mission to investigate the extent of the slave trade. The next month he was reportedly present at the Capture of Jerusalem. In 1918 he began a posting at the Arab Bureau, operating as an intelligence officer at their headquarters in Cairo. This was a role generally based in Cairo, with spells in Palestine and Syria, working alongside Lawrence of Arabia in the final campaigns of the Arab Revolt. His work with the Bureau was interrupted by his taking part in a military expedition against the Turkana people, who lived on the fringes of British East Africa and were notorious for raiding cattle.
At some time either shortly before or shortly after the conclusion of the war, he left the bureau to serve on attachment to the British Embassy in Rome. He also spent time with the British Legation in Athens. Years later, in February 1922, The London Gazette reported that Philipps, by now a captain in the Special List, was one of a number of British officers from the war who had been awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold.
Aftermath
Philipps returned to Africa and served as acting district commissioner in Kigezi District in Uganda from 1919 through 1920. One of his challenges was the threat posed by the Nyabinghi cult, popular with the Kiga people of Southern Uganda, and highly resistant to British rule. After cult leader Ntokibiri was killed by a posse, Philipps ordered that the head of Ntokibiri be sent to Entebbe as proof that the threat had been eliminated. Philipps worked to end the use of Baganda agents in areas populated by the Kiga and discouraged the use of the Luganda language in courts, instead introducing the Swahili language, which the Baganda people could not speak. In February 1920 Philipps briefly returned to Durham where he gave a public lecture on 'The Pygmies of East Central Africa', illustrated with slides, at Durham Town Hall.The following year he travelled on foot across Equatorial Africa, taking a circuitous route from east to west. On the way he discovered Lutra Paraonyx Philippsi,,a subspecies of the African clawless otter that he recorded for science and had named after himself. For one month he was joined by Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, whom Philipps helped to obtain photographs of pygmies and specimens of gorilla for the Swedish Museum of Natural History. As reported in The Morning Bulletin, Philipps had a caravan party of approximately 50 men for the seven-month journey, including two tribal chiefs lent to him by colonial authorities, Philippo Lwengoga and Benedikto Daki, who proved to be crucial in the success of the journey.
Detouring into Abyssinia, Philipps stumbled upon a slave market, where he saw a 'half-caste auctioneer' selling young girls to the highest bidder. He was able to buy off the girl in the worst condition, who had been nearly beaten to death, and had her sent to a Christian mission. In Addis Ababa he encountered the Empress Zewditu, describing her as 'short and handsome, with a mass of barbaric robes encrusted with gold and jewels' and having 'black, rather curly hair' In the aftermath of the journey, Philipps took Lwengoga and Daki with him to London, where the trio visited the Zoological Society Gardens. The two Africans were reportedly astonished to see a zookeeper approach and feed an African Elephant without any fear.
Philipps was assigned by Lord Halifax – who had recently been appointed Under-Secretary for the Colonies – to report on the activities of the 2nd Pan-African Congress, which was hosting several meetings in London, Brussels and Paris during August and September. During this mission he would meet W. E. B. DuBois, the organiser of the Congress and an American sociologist and Pan-Africanism advocate. Following the Paris conference, Philipps contacted Du Bois to seek a lunch meeting in London, specifically at The Holborn Restaurant, 129 Kingsway. Du Bois was unable to attend because he left Europe at the start of the month, but requested copies of any future articles that Philipps published, thus establishing a long-term correspondence between the two.
With the Famine in Russia intensifying, Philipps travelled to Constantinople, then Moscow, as part of the International Committee for Russian Relief led by explorer Fridtjof Nansen. He then took a brief detour into journalism when he reported on the Greco-Turkish War for The Times newspaper. He may have decided to follow Nansen to Ottoman Turkey, who was in the country to negotiate the resettlement of Greek refugees. While stationed in Turkey he assumed the role of supply commissioner for the famine relief operation organised by the British Red Cross under the auspices of the League of Nations and Nansen's International Committee for Russian Relief. This allowed him to travel through the Ukrainian and Russian countryside and become familiar with the people and their traditions, but also developed a permanent resentment of the Soviet system. He later reported seeing the remains of victims of human cannibalism.