Matthew Nathan

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the U.S. Navy surgeon general, see Matthew L. Nathan.

Sir John Goodwin
Personal details
Born(1862-01-03)3 January 1862
Paddington, London, England
Died18 April 1939(1939-04-18) (aged 77)
West Coker, Somerset, England
Resting placeWillesden Jewish Cemetery, England
Alma materRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich
ProfessionSoldier, colonial administrator
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese彌敦
Simplified Chinese弥敦

Natal and Queensland. He was Under-Secretary for Ireland from 1914 to 1916, and was responsible, with the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell, for the administration of Ireland in the years immediately preceding the Easter Rising
.

Early life and career

Nathan was born in

Jewish descent and the second son of businessman Jonah Nathan and Miriam Jacob Nathan. His brothers were Colonel Sir Frederick Nathan, an officer of the Royal Artillery and sometime Superintendent of Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills, and Sir Nathaniel Nathan, a colonial judge in Trinidad and Tobago
.

Nathan was educated at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where he was the winner of the Pollock Medal (1880) before being gazetted to Royal Engineers in 1880. He continued his training at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham from 1880 to 1884.

Nathan was sent to military expeditions to

captain in 1889 and became the secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee between 1896 and 1898. Nathan was promoted to major
in 1898.

Colonial career

Nathan was appointed acting governor of Sierra Leone from 1899 to 1900. Late that year, he was appointed as Governor of Gold Coast,[1] a position he occupied until 1903. In 1902, Nathan imported into the Gold Coast a £543 French Gardner-Serpollet, paraffin-fired, steam-driven car for his use on the roads around Accra.[2] He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902,[3][4] and invested by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902.[5]

In 1903, Nathan was appointed as

Kowloon-Canton Railway
started under this period.

In 1907, Nathan was made Governor of

Board of Inland Revenue
between 1911 and 1914.

Under-Secretary for Ireland

Nathan was appointed

Home Rule Act 1914.[7] His immediate superior was the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was then largely a ceremonial position, and the Chief Secretary spent much of his time in London, where he was a member of the cabinet. Therefore, the Under-Secretary was effectively the head of the administration in Ireland.[8]

Nathan's job involved liaising with the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) to prepare them for self-government. He was also concerned with recruiting in Ireland, and received regular reports from the police and military about anti-recruiting and pro-independence activity, including the threat of a German invasion or arms landing in support of an Irish rising.[9]

Alarmed at the growing numbers of separatists in the Civil Service, Nathan wrote to the authorities to have them transferred to England, and eventually got cabinet approval for a letter warning civil servants that they would be dismissed if they continued as members of the Irish Volunteers.[10] He used the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 to suppress newspapers that he considered seditious, against the advice of the IPP[11] In general, however, he avoided any action that might provoke violence.

On 21 April 1916, Nathan was informed that a German boat had been stopped off the coast of County Kerry carrying arms and ammunition and that a man had been arrested after coming ashore from another vessel. The man arrested was subsequently identified as Sir Roger Casement[12]

A mobilization of the Irish Volunteers fixed for

Easter Sunday was cancelled the day before. Nathan, believing that a rising had been averted, rejected the insistent urging of the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne, to order the arrest of a large number of rebel leaders and the necessity of raiding premises associated with the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army.[13] Nathan cabled Birrell, the Chief Secretary, in London regarding Wilborne's demands. On Easter Monday, while he was in his office in Dublin Castle, the Easter Rising broke out and Dublin Castle itself was attacked. An elderly unarmed sentry, Constable O'Brien, was shot dead by Sean Connolly. A passing priest administered the last rites.[14]

The Castle gates were closed, and the rebels did not press the attack, but Nathan was a virtual prisoner until troops arrived from the Curragh Camp on Monday evening.[15] Nathan remained in the Castle for the rest of the week (being moved to the stables to accommodate the military), where he kept in contact with London, keeping the government up to date with the situation and helping to answer questions in Parliament.[16]

The Rising came to an end on 30 April. The same day, Birrell offered his resignation, and on 3 May, at Birrell's request, Nathan also resigned.

Royal Commission on the 1916 Rebellion (the Hardinge commission) was critical of Birrell and Nathan, in particular their failure to take action against the rebels in the weeks and months before the Rising.[18]

Later career

After his resignation, Nathan was appointed secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, a position he held until 1919. In 1920, he was appointed Governor of Queensland and served in that position until 1925. It was to be his last post in the Colonial Service. During his tenure, Nathan actively promoted British migration to Queensland.

In 1922, he founded, along with Henry Caselli Richards, the Great Barrier Reef Committee. He was chancellor of the University of Queensland in 1922–25 and was awarded an honorary LL.D. in 1925.

After his appointment as governor expired, Nathan left Queensland for retirement in Somerset, England, where he died in the village of West Coker in 1939. He was buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery, London.

Honours

Places named after him

Nathan Road, the main commercial artery in the Kowloon Peninsula (otherwise known as the Golden Mile), was named after him.

In Australia, Nathan and Nathan Heights in Brisbane (the capital city of Queensland) and Nathan Street in the Canberra suburb of Deakin were named after him.

Nathan House, a boarding house for Form 2 learners at Maritzburg College in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa is named in his honour.

Scottburgh, South Africa has a street named after Sir Matthew Nathan.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "No. 27245". The London Gazette. 9 November 1900. p. 6854.
  2. ^ Simon Heap, 'The development of motor transport in the Gold Coast, 1900–39', Journal of Transport History, 1990, pp. 19–37.
  3. ^ "The Coronation Honours". The Times. No. 36804. London. 26 June 1902. p. 5.
  4. ^ a b "No. 27448". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 June 1902. p. 4196.
  5. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. No. 36908. London. 25 October 1902. p. 8.
  6. ^ Miller, Yvette Alt (18 June 2019). "Hong Kong and the Jews: 6 Facts". Aish HaTorah. Archived from the original on 8 June 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  7. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970, p. 12
  8. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 21
  9. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, pp. 19–23
  10. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, pp. 32–34
  11. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, pp. 38–42
  12. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 81
  13. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, pp. 82–86
  14. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 91
  15. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 94
  16. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 100
  17. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 117
  18. ^ Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 161

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Matthew Nathan.
Government offices
Preceded by
Governor of the Gold Coast

1900–1903 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Governor of Hong Kong
1904–1907 		Succeeded by
Sir Frederick Lugard
Preceded by
Sir Henry Edward McCallum
Governor of Natal

1907–1909 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Governor of Queensland
1920–1925 		Succeeded by
Sir John Goodwin
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