SIR EDWARD CRAIG.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 9 November 1925, Page 7

SIR EDWARD CRAIG.

NEW GOVERNOR OF KENYA. A VARIED CAREER. Sir Edward Grigg and Lady Grigg have left for Kenya Colony, of which the former is Governor-designate (writes a London correspondent). Lady Grigg, who is Lord and Lady Islington s daughter, is naturally known in New Zealand, where she spent, a few years of her early life, and Sir Edward Grigg, as Military Secretary to t-lie Prince of Wales during his Dominion tours, made many friends in all the Dominions. Previous to his visit with the Prince, however, Sir Edward had toured New Zealand oil his own account. An interesting article on Grigg’s career is published in the Daily Mail. Pew Englishmen who have succeeded in public life have had such a varied career as the new Governor of Kenya, but he has never faced a more complex and delicate task than that which now confronts him. “Grigg .was at Winchester and tit. New College, Oxford, and at the University lie won the Gazoford Prize for Greek verse,’’ says the writer oi: the Mail article. “He began his journalistic work, like several other wellknown men, as secretary of The Times, but after a year went to assist Mr. J. L. Garvin in that enthusiastic enterprise. The Outlook. Afterwards he travelled for a couple of years in India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, and he was still at the other end of the world when the late Lord NorthelifTe, on acquiring The Times, telegraphed inviting him to return to Printing House Square as Colonial editor. For the next four years he remained on The Times, incidentally again visiting Canada and the United States twice, and India once; but then the activities of The Round Table group attracted him, and he became joint editor of that journal with Mr. Philip Kerr. Unique War Record. “In the Great War he seenTcd to have found his true vocation, for on joining the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards he was made, after a year in the trenches, G. 5.0.3 of the Guards Division in March, 11)18, and took over in the midst of the great German attack. “1 have heard the late .Earl of Ypres say more than once, in his downright way, that ‘any fool can become a brigadier or even a divisional commander, but for young Ned Grigg, without any special influence, to finish up as G.5.0.l of the Guards Division, and to have done his job well, was the most astonishing performance of the whole war. ’ Lt is no secret that Grigg might have had far higher promotion, but he preferred to stay with the Guards. “ Grigg’s la ter career has been much more in the public eye. Mr. Winston Churchill brought him back from Cologne in 1919 to become Secretary of the Army Reorganisation Committee, but very soon the Prince of Wales, who had served with him in the field, requested him, in view of his knowledge of the Dominions, to accompany him on his two tours to Canada, and to Australia, New Zealand, and the West Indies, as his military secretary. Imperial Outlook. “Just when everyone thought lie would continue to hold a Court appointment, as no doubt he might have done, Grigg once more surprised his friends bv becoming private secretary to the Prime Minister, Air. Lloyd George. He had always been a moderate Liberal, but the real explanation was that the dominating passion which lias governed his whole career is faith in the future of the British Empire. He originally went to Downing Street to help in tile 1921. Imperial Conference, but was also a prominent figure at the San Remo and Genoa Conferences, and remained with Mr. Lloyd George until the Coalition fell. Loyalty to his chiefs is one of Grigg’s strong characteristics, and a warm personal regard subsists between him and the political recluse of Churl. “Many smiled again when Grigg, Oxford man and Guards officer, went down to Lancashire am! sought political honours amid the clogs of Oldham; but again he proved right, for lie Avon Oldham three times, and on the first occasion headed the poll. During this period he won a. greater prize in the Hon. Joan Diekson-Poynder, the only daughter of Lord and Lady Islington, who has done a good deal of social work in the East End. He has only just resigned the secretaryship of the Rhodes Trust.”