Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 2014 (Creation)
- 1979 (Creation)
- 1942-1945 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent
5 boxes, 3 outsize items
Scope and content
Papers relating to Taylor’s service as an SOE senior director, 1942-1945, including: correspondence, telegrams, reports and memoranda relating to Taylor’s tour of the Middle East and visit to South Africa as Director of Overseas Groups and Missions, Aug 1942 – Mar 1943; correspondence, notes and memoranda relating to a tour of India, Apr-Aug 1943; briefing notes on SOE operations in Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania, Oct-Dec 1943; two annotated maps of SOE missions in Greece and Yugoslavia, Oct 1943; correspondence, memoranda and other papers relating to SOE operations chiefly in East Asia and South East Asia, Sep 1943 – Dec 1944; correspondence, notes and memoranda relating to Taylor’s tour of India and South East Asia, Dec 1944 – Feb 1945; correspondence, memoranda and reports relating to SOE activities in East Asia and South East Asia, Feb-Oct 1945; telegrams relating to Taylor’s tour of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), May – Jul 1945; biographical information about Taylor, including a privately printed account of his World War Two career by his son, Jeremy Taylor, 2014; a diagram of the staffing structure of the SOE directorates, 1943; copy papers relating to SOE operations, 1941-1944, in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
System of arrangement
The papers have been catalogued in broadly chronological order.
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born in Prahran, Melbourne, Australia, 1903; educated at Xavier College and Melbourne University; worked as a freelance journalist; joined the Shell Company, 1930; moved to London, mid-1930s; employed in Section ‘D’ (for Destruction) of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, later known as MI6), Jul 1939; appointed head of SIS Balkan network, 1940; Chief of Staff to Sir Frank Nelson, executive head of Special Operations Executive (SOE), 1940; worked in Yugoslavia, Jan-Apr 1941; captured by Italian forces after the German invasion of Yugoslavia, Apr 1941, and held prisoner for two months before being repatriated; Director of overseas groups and missions, SOE, Mar 1942; granted honorary rank of colonel, 1943; Chief of Staff to Sir Charles Hambro, Head of SOE, 1943; Director of Far East SOE, 1943-1945; Director of the Bank of London & South America Ltd, 1950; Chairman, Bank of London & South America Ltd, 1970; returned to Australia, mid 1970s; died, 1979.
Repository
Custodial history
Placed in the Centre by the family in 2015.
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
Script of material
Alternative identifier(s)
Subjects
Place access points
People and Organisations
Genre access points
Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.