Papers of Sir John Robert Chancellor

Despatches, official and personal correspondence, notes and memoranda relating to Chancellor's work as Governor of Mauritius, Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, Governor of Southern Rhodesia, and High Commissioner for Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

Sir John Robert Chancellor was born in 1870 and educated at Blair Lodge Academy, Polmont and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1890 and served in India with the Dongola (1896) and Tirah (1897-1898) expeditions before returning to England and entering the Staff College. In 1904 he was appointed Assistant Military Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence and from 1906-1911 served as Secretary of the Colonial Defence Committee. Chancellor went on to serve as Governor of Mauritius (1911-1916), Governor of Trinidad and Tobago (1916-1921) and Governor of Southern Rhodesia (1923-1928) before serving as High Commissioner for Palestine and Trans-Jordan (1928-1931).

Chancellor was awarded the DSO (1898), CMG (1909), KCMG (1913), GCMG (1922), GCVO (1925) and GBE (1947). He died on the 31 July 1952 at the family estate in Shieldhill, Lanarkshire.

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Collection level description created by Marion Lowman, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

Administrative/Biographical History compiled with reference to the Dictionary of National Biography(1951-1960).

The library holds a card index of all manuscript collections in its reading room and a handlist is also available for this collection.

Listed as no. 407 in Manuscript Collections of Africana in Rhodes House Library, Oxford, compiled by Louis B. Frewer (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1968).

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