Reginald Dorman-Smith

Colonel Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith GBE (1899 – 1977) was a British diplomat, soldier and politician.

In politics

Dorman-Smith started his career with a strong interest in agriculture, becoming President of the National Farmers Union at the age of 32, and then later Minister of Agriculture. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament in the 1935 general election as one of a handful of MPs sponsored by the NFU and served as the Union's President for the next few years.

In the late 1930s the Government's agricultural policy came in for heavy criticism from the NFU, Parliament and the Press and in January 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took the bold step of appointing Dorman-Smith as Minister of Agriculture. In October 1940 Dorman-Smith instigated the Government's Dig for Victory campaign, aimed at increasing food production from allotments. However when Chamberlain fell, Dorman-Smith was not included in the government of his successor, Winston Churchill.

Governor of Burma

Dorman-Smith was the Governor General of Burma from 6 May 1941 - 31 August 1946 and was therefore in office at the time of the Japanese invasion - and was expelled from the country by the Japanese. Between May 1942 and Oct 1945 he was in exile at Simla, India. In October 1943 Dorman-Smith lamented the fact that the Burmese had not rallied to defend the British, saying:

"Neither our word nor our intentions are trusted in that part of the globe ... We have fed such countries as Burma on political formulae until they are sick at the very sight and sound of a formula, which has come, as far as my experience shows, to be looked upon as a very British means of avoiding a definite course of action."

Sir Hubert Rance, the British general, took control of the country for the military after the liberation of Rangoon, but Dorman-Smith returned as Governor in 1946. Dorman-Smith remembered that Aung San, the nationalist leader, had supported the Axis for most of the war, and had him arrested. Burmese workers went on strike and prepared for rebellion; cooler heads in London defused the situation and Aung San was released.

While Dorman-Smith was back in the UK for medical reasons he was replaced by Rance, who was supported by Lord Mountbatten and considered more supportive of Burmese aspirations for independence than his predecessor.

imla Conference 1944

As the Governor of Burma, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith met with Anglo-Burmese leaders in Simla in 1944, to discuss the future of the Anglo-Burmese community after the war.

The Anglo-Burmese delegates were:

*Mr. G. Kirkham
*Mr. H.J. Mitchell B.Fr.S.
*Mr. J. Barrington I.C.S.
*Mr. K.W. Foster B.C.S.
*Mr. E.A. Franklin I.C.S
*Mr. W.A. Gibson
*Mrs. K. Russell
*Mr. H. Elliott
*Mr. C.H. Campagnac
*Mr. J.A. Wiseham
*Mr. J.F. Blake

One of the results of the conference was the giving of an assurance to the Anglo-Burmese community that they would be allowed to preserve their freedom of worship and allowed to teach their own religion, freedom to continue their own customs, and maintain their own language of English.

After leaving Burma, Dorman-Smith continued to take an interest in its affairs. He believed that if London had not intervened, he could have influenced the course of events in Burma so as to prevent the country from leaving the Commonwealth.

Family

Dorman-Smith was born in County Cavan, Ireland and was educated at Harrow, Sandhurst and Cambridge University. He served briefly in the Indian Army before being invalided out, then joined a volunteer battalion of the Queen's Royal Regiment.

One of Dorman-Smith's two brothers Eric was a major-general in the British Army in the second world war; after falling out with the British establishment he became an Irish nationalist sympathiser and changed his name to Dorman O'Gowan. His other brother, Victor, was a Royal Navy Captain.

References

"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"

External links

* [http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Myanmar.htm Burma's history - data website]