Collection SHEA - SHEA, Gen Sir John Stuart Mackenzie (1869-1966)

Key Information

Reference code

SHEA

Title

SHEA, Gen Sir John Stuart Mackenzie (1869-1966)

Date(s)

  • 1897-1966 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent

2 boxes

Scope and content

Copies of papers coverning the career of Shea in South Africa, France, Palestine and India, general correspondence and lectures, 1897-1966; notably including letters and despatches from the Boer War, 1901-1902, compiled by Shea as an officer in De Lisle's Australian brigade with an account of a march to sieze the drift over the Vet Reiver, accounts and commendations; diaries describing his service in France, 1914-1915; papers on service in Palestine, including correspondence, congratulatory telegrams from Gen Edmund (Henry Hynman) Allenby, Gen Sir Edward Stanislaus Bulfin and Maj Gen Philip Walhouse Chetwode on operations in Palestine, notes on fighting issued to 60 Div, Orders of Battle and composition of British and Turkish forces at Beersheba, Gaza and Jerusalem, other tactical notes, photographs of Jerusalem, encampments, troops crossing the Jordan river, Shea and other officers, and correspondence on the subsequent Official History of Palestine , 1917-1955; material on Shea's India service, principally guidance notes on relations with civilian Indians, notes by Shea on the Duzdap railway line, India-Persia, report entitled 'A review of the Waziristan situation with suggestions regarding the future', correspondence on Shea's address to the 1900 Club and the House of Commons and India Committee on conditions in India, maps of Eastern Command, North West Frontier Province and India in its entirety (3 items), 1921-1933; Camberley Staff College assignment reports on the defence of the land frontier of India and Belgium, and other essays on Basutoland and the balance of power in Europe, 1905-1906; general correspondence with Shea describing retirement, decorations, cavalry in the Russian Civil War (1919-1920), and on cavalry actions in the 20th Century, 1919-1955; notes on Aldershot Interdivisional Army Manoeuvres, 1912; typescript lectures and addresses by Shea on the Palestine campaign under Allenby, and on India, 1918-[1942]; maps and aerial photographs of Flanders, with trench positions, Le Touquet and Macquart, 1915-1916, photographs of Sadowa and surrounding countryside, Czechoslovakia (18 items), pencil sketch map of Swat Valley, India, 1897; obituaries of Shea, 1966.

System of arrangement

Arranged into eight principal sections covering the main spheres of operation during Shea's career in chronological order.

General Information

Name of creator

(1869-1966)

Biographical history

Born 1869; educated Sedbergh School and Sandhurst; commissioned Royal Irish Regiment, 1888; Lt, 15 Lancers, Indian Army, 1891; Boer War, South Africa, 1900-1902; Major, 1906; Western Front and Palestine, including role as commander 60 Div under the then Gen Edmund (Henry Hynman) Allenby, World War One, 1914-1918; GOC, Central Provinces District, 1921-1923; instrumental in reforming commissioning process for Indians in the British Army in India; ADC General to HM, 1924-1928; Adjutant-General in India, 1924-1928; General, 1926; GOC, Eastern Command in India, 1928-1932; retired 1932; prominent in scouting movement in India and UK; died, 1966.

Custodial history

Transferred to the Centre by the family in 1986.

Conditions governing access

Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.

Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, via the Archives.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Uploaded finding aid

Existence and location of originals

Off-campus collection

Please note: We require 7 days notice to retrieve this collection as part, or all of it, is held off-campus. Read more ›

Related materials

Materials relating to Shea in the Centre include a script of a radio broadcast by Shea on Allenby, 1936 (Allenby 1/14/32); correspondence with Shea on Allenby by FM Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (Harrap and Co, London, 1940) (Allenby 6/6-10); correspondence on promotions (Bartholomew 1/1); notes of a discussion and correspondence between Shea and Basil Liddell Hart (Liddell Hart 11/1926, LH2S/89/1-8); numerous items of correspondence on Army operations on the Western Front and in India (Montgomery Massingberd 7/32, 8/21 and others).

Related descriptions

Note

Decorations: DSO, 1901, KCMG, 1919, GCB, 1929

Alternative identifier(s)

Genre access points

Rules and/or conventions used

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.

Script(s)

Archivist's note

Entry compiled by Geoff Browell for the RSLP AIM25 Project. Sources include Who was who and newspaper obituaries.

Accession area