Frederick Sykes
Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes GCSI , GCIE , GBE , KCB , CMG (born July 23, 1877 in Addiscombe , Surrey , † September 30, 1954 in London ) was a British officer, most recently Air Vice-Marshal of the Royal Air Force , as well as politicians and Governor of the Bombay Presidency in British India from 1928 to 1933.
Life
youth
Sykes was born the youngest of seven children to engineer and entrepreneur Henry Sykes and his wife Mary, a distant cousin of Henry. His father died when Frederick was two years old, and Sykes attended frequently changing schools. From 1889 to 1891 he attended the Whitgift School in London and then went to Paris at the age of 15 , where he learned French and German. His career aspiration at the time was to join the diplomatic service. Before he was 20, he went to Ceylon , where he worked as an office assistant on a tea plantation.
Military career
After the outbreak of war in South Africa in 1899, he volunteered for the Imperial Yeomanry . He was temporarily held in Boer captivity, but was released after a short time. He was later seriously wounded in action and, after his recovery, was accepted as an officer in Lord Roberts ' bodyguard . After the war ended, he joined the 15th The King's Hussars . In 1903 he was transferred to the West African Regiment . During a stay in England in 1904, he took part in balloon training. From 1905 he served in the Intelligence Staff in Shimla, India, and from 1908 attended the Staff College of the British Indian Army in Quetta after his application to Staff College Camberley had failed. After graduating, he obtained his pilot's license in Brooklands ( Royal Aero Club Certificate No. 95). In 1911 he was transferred to the Directorate of Military Operations of the War Office under Henry Hughes Wilson as a staff officer with the rank of captain . He was subsequently selected to serve on a sub- committee of the Committee of Imperial Defense , which examined the military use of aircraft. Its recommendations led to the establishment of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1912 . When the Military Wing of the RFC was set up in 1913, Sykes was given command of the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel .
When Britain entered the First World War on August 5, 1914, Sykes became Chief of Staff of the RFC Headquarters in the field under the command of David Henderson . When Henderson temporarily had to take over the 1st Infantry Division in November , Sykes was his acting successor for a month before Henderson returned to the post in December. At the end of May 1915, Sykes was recalled from France and made available to the Admiralty , which needed his expertise in the use of air units in the Dardanelles expedition . In July 1915 he became the commandant of the Eastern Mediterranean Station of the Royal Naval Air Service , which he remained until the company was liquidated in early 1916. He then served briefly as quartermaster in the newly established 4th Mounted Division under Lord Lovat .
In June 1916 Sykes took over a post in the War Office again as Assistant Adjutant-General and was responsible for the establishment of the Machine Gun Corps of the British Army . In February 1917 he was temporarily promoted to Brigadier-General Director-General of Organization in the War Office. In November 1917, after the formation of the Allied Supreme War Council , he became General Wilson's deputy as the British Military Plenipotentiary. His military career culminated in Sykes' appointment as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) in April 1918 , after the first holder of the post, Hugh Trenchard , resigned. Sykes held this position until January 1919, when the new Secretary of Aviation Winston Churchill Trenchard brought back to the post. In March 1919, Sykes was discharged from the armed forces with the rank of major-general after he had attended the Paris Peace Conference in the British Air Section . His rank was set to that of an Air Vice-Marshal when the RAF's new ranking system was introduced. Sykes subsequently became Controller General of Civil Aviation , a post he served until 1922.
Political career
In the general election in 1922 Sykes stood for the Conservative Party in the Sheffield- Hallam constituency and was elected Member of Parliament . In the elections in 1923 and 1924 he was able to defend his seat. In 1923 he became chairman of the Broadcasting Committee , which recommended royalty funding for the BBC .
He gave up his seat in parliament in 1928 when he was offered the office of governor of Bombay . He served in this capacity until 1933, when he returned to England, and was also a member of the Privy Council . On October 25, 1928, an attack was carried out on his special train , but it failed.
Until 1939 he served in various public posts. In a by-election in 1940 he was re-elected to parliament for the constituency of Nottingham Central and held his seat until the July 1945 elections .
Private
Sykes married the older daughter Isabel of the conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law in 1920 . With her he had a son.
literature
- Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Ash: Sir Frederick Sykes and the Air Revolution 1912-1918. Frank Cass, London 1999.
Web links
- Frederick Sykes on rafweb.org
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter WB Semmens: Catastrophes on rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 82.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Sir Hugh Trenchard |
Chief of the Air Staff 1918-1919 |
Sir Hugh Trenchard |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sykes, Frederick |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sykes, Frederick Hugh (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Air Force Commander and Politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 23, 1877 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Addiscombe , Surrey |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 30, 1954 |
| Place of death | London |