War Office

This article examines the governorship in Gibraltar of General Sir Archibald Hunter in the years from 1910 and to 1913. It highlights the difficulties that governors of strategically important British outposts, such as the imperial fortresses of Gibraltar, Malta and Bermuda, faced in discharging the dual roles of civil governor and military governor. Drawing upon evidence from Hunter’s biographers, the National Archives in London and repositories in Gibraltar, this article examines the effect on the careful balance of interests between the Colonial Office, theWarOffice and the local civilian community when such a balance was tested almost to destruction by a governor more used to front-line military action than to colonial government. This article also sheds light on why Hunter’s subsequent career was stifled—something that his biographers have hitherto failed to explain.

General Sir Archibald Hunter (1856-1936) was one of the most promising officers in the British Army.  After an illustrious career in Egypt, where he served in the British-officered Egyptian Army, he was one of the few generals who escaped from the Boer War with his reputation intact.  Later in his career he was Colonel of the King’s Own Lancashire Regiment and Member of Parliament for Lancaster.  Nevertheless, despite this promising trajectory the middle of his career was blighted by a colonial political scandal.  As a result, Hunter did not serve overseas in the Great War and was consigned to being commandant of the army barracks at Aldershot.  The events that brought about this change in Hunter’s career took place in Gibraltar between 1910-13.  As Governor of Gibraltar he clashed with the Colonial Office by attempting to associate his governorship with the War Office.  In addition, a programme of sweeping civil reforms led him into conflict with the local entrepreneurial elite.  The result was his eventual recall and an end to any hopes of obtaining the Field Marshall’s baton that had previously seemed just in reach.  Drawing on hitherto unused evidence collected in Gibraltar, this paper will explore Hunter’s time in Gibraltar.  It will show that, contrary to the view of the current historiography, it was not deteriorating local relations which formed the principal reason for Hunter’s recall, but rather his poor relations with the Colonial Office and Secretary of State, Louis Harcourt.  An examination of this dispute illuminates further the difficult balance colonial governors had to maintain between their rights as a Crown appointed governor and duties both to the colonial and war offices.