Gilbert MacKereth

Sir Gilbert MacKereth , KCMG MC (born October 19, 1892 in Salford , Greater Manchester , † January 11, 1962 in Donostia ) was a British diplomat .

Life

His parents were Annie MacKereth (née Bolton) and Thomas MacKereth (* 1864 in Eccles) a bank director.

Gilbert MacKereth was an insurance agent when he was recruited to the Lancashire Fusiliers on November 19, 1914.

As part of Kitchener's army , the 21st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, was established in Epsom on September 11, 1914. Kitschner appealed to the "Public Schools and University Mens Force" to mobilize human resources for the craft of war. Accordingly, his unit was also referred to as the 4th Public Schools Battalion and deployed in France in the 98th Brigade as part of the 33rd Division. Mackereth was promoted to lieutenant from July 6, 1916 to February 4, 1917. From February 27 to April 24, 1916 he was employed in the General Staff of Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig and then received a command. In 1916 he was promoted to battalion commander. In April 1917 when Gricourt was captured after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, he saved a group of soldiers from no man's land, for which he was awarded the Military Cross on June 18, 1917 .

His list of medals shows that he came to the front for the first time on November 14, 1915. He was allowed to wear the British War Medal , the 1914-15 Star and the Victory Medal on a ribbon with an oak leaf.

From May 1, 1917 to June 19, 1918 he was an adjutant and on August 3, 1917 he was in the service of a colonel. On August 21, 1917, his leg was injured in an attack on a forest near Chambrai. On June 15, 1918 he was used again in the 17th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers. On July 4, 1918, he was promoted to major with effect from May 21, 1918 and was deputy battalion commander.

On August 26, 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was in command of the 17th battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers until September 3, 1918.

As a lieutenant colonel , he was in command from October 29, 1918 to April 24, 1919.

He left the army on April 24, 1919 and joined the foreign service. In 1921 he was in the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in Jerusalem and married Muriel MacKereth. He was in the rank of Vice Consul from April 1, 1923 in the international zone of Tangier and from October 18, 1923 in Fez in French Morocco . With its official seat in Fés, its official area was expanded in November 1926. On November 2, 1930 he was transferred to Addis Ababa . From January 10, 1933 to 1939 he was with the official seat of Damascus Vice Consul for the Sanjaks Damascus, Homs, Hama, Hauran and the Governorate of Djebel Druze in the League of Nations mandate for Syria and Lebanon .

Numerous Jewish immigrants had fled the German Reich to Palestine before National Socialism. In 1937 MacKereth recommended intensifying border surveillance around Palestine in order to counter arms smuggling and terrorist infiltration.

On the birthday of George VI. (United Kingdom) on December 14, 1939, Gilbert MacKereth was inducted into the Order of St. Michael and St. George as a Companion.

On March 11, 1940, MacKereth was appointed consul general in Addis Ababa in Italian East Africa . On April 30, 1941, MacKereth was appointed consul general in Ankara . On March 25, 1945 MacKereth was appointed Consul General in Rabat in Spanish Morocco . From June 1944 to January 1945 MacKereth was Counselor at the British Legation in Beirut , Edward Spears, a British confidante to Charles de Gaulle , tried in vain to prove Gilbert MacKereth's mismanagement.

On March 13, 1946, he was promoted to fourth degree consul and appointed consul general in the Dutch East Indies . In retirement, Gilbert MacKereth lived in Donostia , where he died in 1962.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sir Charles Tegart Collection. (PDF; 57 kB)
2. ^ Foreign Office, March 11, 1940. In: The London Gazette. no.34831, p. 2241, April 16, 1940.

predecessor	Office	successor
Philip Mainwaring Broadmead	British Ambassador to Colombia December 19, 1947 to 1953	Reginald Keith Jopson