Hubert Elvin Rance

Major General Sir Hubert Elvin Rance , GCMG , GBE , CB , (* 1898 , † 1974 ) was the last governor of the British crown colony of Burma before the country's independence from 1946 to 1948 . Later he was governor of Trinidad and Tobago .

Life

Career until 1945

Rance came in 1916 in the British Army and fought with the Worcestershire Regiment in the First World War . He was later transferred to the Royal Corps of Signals , the army's telecommunications company. During the Second World War he took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk as part of the British Expeditionary Force . He then held various posts in the War Office , where he was responsible for organizing the training.

Burma

In 1945, after Burma was retaken by British troops and the Imperial Japanese Army withdrew, Rance took over management of the administration, but was initially replaced in 1946 by the prewar governor Reginald Dorman-Smith . However, on the advice of Lord Mountbatten , Prime Minister Clement Attlee decided to replace Dorman-Smith with Rance, who was more open to negotiations with Aung San and the Burmese nationalists for the purpose of an early independence.

At the end of August 1946, Rance was appointed governor of the Crown Colony. The policy of slow preparation for independence originally set out in the white paper has been abandoned. Rance should work with Aung San and his Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) to prevent the radicalization of nationalists and the rise of communists and to achieve effective protection of minorities in the future Burma.

On January 27, 1947, an agreement was signed between Prime Minister Attlee and Aung San, according to which elections should be held in April and independence should be granted as soon as possible. After Aung San's assassination in July 1947, Rance appointed U Nu prime minister in order to avoid major unrest and to ensure the smoothest possible transition. On January 4, 1948, Rance handed sovereignty to President Sao Shwe Thaik in a formal ceremony.

Rance had since left the army. In 1948 he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (GCMG).

West indies

Rance was Governor of Trinidad and Tobago from April 19, 1950 to June 1955. The Hubert Rance Street in San Fernando district Vistabella was named after him.

Rance was the author of two reports published by the London Colonial Office in 1950 : Development and welfare in the West Indies, 1947-49 and Report of the British Caribbean Standing Closer Association Committee, 1948-49 . In May 1956 he also published the article Burma's Economic Problems in the Eastern World .

literature

• Clive Christie: The Karens , in: Turbulent Times and Enduring People (2000) ed. Jean Michaud.
• William Roger Louis: Dissolution of the British Empire , in: The Oxford History of the British Empire (1999) ed.Brown, Louis, Low.
• Shelby Tucker: Burma: The Curse of Independence (2001) ISBN 0745315410
• King's College Military Archives

Web links

• Time, January 12, 1948: Independence.
• Britannica.com: Myanmar: The Emergence of Nationalism - World War II and After. Retrieved March 31, 2016 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith	Governor of Burma 1946-1948	-