Arthur Jelf

Arthur Jelf
Born	1876
Died	1947
Residence	Bushley, 80 Woodstock Road, Oxford Ipok, Perak, Federated Malay States [1915]
Society Membership membership Local Correspondent Ordinary Fellow left 1917 last listed elected_AI 1913.12.04

Notes

House Notes

1913.11.18 proposed by R.R. Marett, seconded by L.R. Farnell
1913.11.18 Local Correspondents. Mr J.H. Hutton was elected a Local Correspondent and Messrs A. Jelf and J.F. Richards were nominated.
1913.12.02 Mr Arthur Jelf and Mr J.F. Richards were elected Local Correspondents
1914.05.12 The Treasurer then made his statement as to Fellows in arrears with their subscriptions. It was resolved that ... Mr A. Jelf and Mr O.F. Watkins be written to by the Treasurer.

Notes From Elsewhere

Arthur (later Sir Arthur) Jelf was, among many things, Chair of the Kinta Sanitary Board during the First World War. His first wife, Blanche, died shortly after they left Ipoh. Jelf married again and went on to become Colonial Secretary in Jamaica. He lost a son somewhere over the English Channel in the build-up to the Second World War.

Arthur Jelf was the eldest son of Canon George Edward Jelf and was born in 1876. He was educated at Marlborough College and Oxford. Sir Arthur Jelf's career in the Malay Civil Service began in 1899 and for the next 26 years until 1925 he undertook a series of interesting and demanding administrative appointments the length and breadth of the peninsular of the Federated Malay States and in Singapore. He was a District Officer in a number of locations in a FMS that was without main roads, railways and where a lot of the travelling was done by coastal craft. He was a founding member of the FMS Volunteer Rifles in 1902 and served on and off for many years reaching the rank of Captain. Service included working for MI5 in London at the end of the Great War.

In 1925 when head of Political Intelligence for the Colony, he was selected as Colonial Secretary of Jamaica, soon discovering that he would undertake long periods of time acting as Governor General until he retired in 1935. He was made CMG in 1926 and Knighted in 1932 for services to the Colonies over many years.

During World War II he worked once again in Intelligence until ill-health and organisational changes encouraged hi final retirement aged 67 years. He was Mayor of Hythe in 1937. He was married twice; his first wife Blanche Connell who died aged 38 in 1917 was the mother of their four children. He married secondly in 1923 to Evelyn Hardcastle who died in Hythe in 1972. Sir Arthur Jelf died aged 71 years in 1947.