Cecil Harcourt Folder LEES

[corisande]

Another "special appointment" man murdered, but without CWGC recognition.

My write up of Lees is here

He was clearly a serving officer on a "special appointment", that is undercover work. You can see he resigned his commission March 1920, but gets a "special appointment" in July 1920

He was murdered on a Dublin Street on March 28th 1921

As far as I can see he meets the criteria for CWGC recognition

[corisande]

Now that Parcell Bowen has been sorted, I will give Cecil Lees a nudge

He was murdered in Dublin 29 Mar 1921

He had a "Special Appointment" like virtually all these men dating from 16 Jul 1920

Palmer was an undercover man in Dublin then. I do not have Lees service record (I do not live in UK). I guess one needs that to prove the point. So if anyone wants to get hold of it, I am sure that we could get him recognised by CWGC too.

[corisande]

I cannot find where he was buried yet.

But he was certainly undercover, just come across this reference in "Last Days of Dublin Castle"

"Tues 29 March One of O's (note - this is Ormonde Winter, chief of Intelligence) people a Capt Lease (note - sic, but obviously is Lees, and notes to the book say Lees), was murdered this morning in Wicklow St. It seems too ghastly to be even thinking of peace making with this sort of thing going on"

[David_Underdown]

I did have a bit of a browse through the catalogue the other day for his service record, but there was no C H F Lees, and several C Lees I think. If anyone can narrow it down, I'll see if I have chance to look at it.

[corisande]

Thanks

Nat Arch Catalogue is a very weak area for me. so I doubt that I could help there!

[Phil Evans]

Corisande,

His service record is in WO 339/105582.

See post #8 in your thread on the Soldiers board.

Phil

[corisande]

Corisande,

His service record is in WO 339/105582.

See post #8 in your thread on the Soldiers board.

Phil

Thanks. I apologise, I had added it to my list to do next year at Nat Archives, but had omitted to put the ref here. I must be trying to keep too many soldiers records on the go at the same time, and lost the plot with the detail

David Underdown should pick the ref up here.

[David_Underdown]

I managed to look at the file yesterday. No doubt he was serving at the time of his death, the usual court of enquiry (unredacted!) and committee of adjustment. Various interesting bits and pieces in the extensive file, he left a (second) wife in South Africa, who was looking after his three children (from his first marriage) - copies of both marriage certificates are on the file. There is then the "fiancee" in Paris, whom he appears to have told that he was divorced.

As a civil servant in SA he seems to have been involved in a fingerprint bureau, and this role seems to have been the reason he was directly commissioned into the Labour Corps, for service with the Chinese Labour Corps. I wonder if this area of expertise also had some bearing on why he was employed in Ireland?

There are several letters on the file from the editor of Burkes Baronetage and Peerage, and also his brother's solicitors.

The file also shows that he was buried in Streatham Park Cemetery.

I hope to get the photos online later today.

[corisande]

As always, I am very grateful to you for looking that up.

Interesting that the court of inquiry is unredacted, quite surprising given it was March 1921 - that is good news for me as I should get some more names of Intelligence men

That is probably true about fingerprints - he appears to have been "clerical" working in Dublin Castle, rather than on the streets. Certainly his background is clerical rather than action in the infantry.

Most of these men seem to have a complete mes in their private lives due to the war.

[David_Underdown]

Corisande, don't think any of the other witnesses called were army or police.

[corisande]

Just my luck

[David_Underdown]

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/11226331@N05/sets/72157625387086803/ Most of the photos need rotating and generally tidying up, but you should eb able to get started.

[corisande]

Having seen that you photographed 125 pages, I am doubly indebted to you

I am on the job now and will download, rotate and tidy up as you suggest.

I'll put another comment here once I have updated my web page on Lees.

He was, as you say, undoubtedly serving when he was shot, so is entitled to a CWGC grave, as I understand it.

So we have to find where he was buried before embarking on the road to requesting that. I have found 2 descendants on the web and have contacted them to see if they can tell me - but I have no great expectation - one is a descendant from the children he abandoned in SA, and has no real idea what happened to Lees, and the other is a woman with 2000 people on her tree, which is not usually a good sign for getting detailed information.

[David_Underdown]

There are a few repeats in that 125 count - where I could see that the first image was blurred (though there may be others I've missed where this is the case). I'll get round to deleting the duplicates and so on eventually. I think I mentioned above that there are papers in the file indicating his burial place - Streatham Park Cemetery I think. It's in the borough of Merton and Sutton, but not run by them from what I can make out, there are some contact details on thier website though. It looks like it may still be privately run, so I don't know where their records will be.

[David_Underdown]

ah yes, the last page of the file is a letter from the Secretary of Streatham Park Cemetery dated 21 April 1921, say that Lees was buried there on 4 April, and complaining that the paperwork form Ireland still hasn't caught up, http://www.flickr.com/photos/11226331@N05/5224941148/in/set-72157625387086803/. Contact details for cemetery http://www.merton.gov.uk/living/register/cemeteries/othercemeteries.htm

[corisande]

Thanks

I have only done 10 pages so far

It is easier to do it a page at a time reading it, and adding any snippets as I go.

Certainly that reference to his grave makes it a lot easier than trying to track down a descendant who might have known.

[corisande]

Ok, I hve been through it all and added pages off my bits on Lees

The key bits for non-commemoration are

1. He was unequivocally a serving officer. There are lots of records showing this in his srevice record, but this page states it clearly

2. His burial at Streatham

I have put David's information in this form if anyone wants to read it with pages trimmed and rotated

His will

His widow

His fiancee one Annette Woolfe from Paris

His mother

The baronetcy

Burial

Inquiry

One point that I had not grasped before was that he was heir to the Baronetcy of his father. When he died his brother got it (as Cecil had no male children) However I believe that he was married earlier and had at least one son in SA (his first Mar. Cert gives him as "widower" & there is someone on Ancestry interested in whim called Lees who lives in SA). If this is so the SA Lees would be entitled to claim the Baronetcy.

The mount of squabbling over his will is incredible, the army loses the record of his original will and it runs and runs from there.

One thing I could ask David is where is the bit about fingerprinting - I seem to have missed that. Probably trying to do it too quickly

[IPT]

I couldn't find the fingerprint part either before my neck became too sore to continue.

It was a nice touch by the army to charge him £14 for his funeral. Also, i'm intrigued as to what was in the black box which he wanted destroyed in the event of his death.

I have the Honour to be,

Sir,

Your Obedient Servant,

[corisande]

Yes the black box was intriguing. The whole thing about his will was like a soap opera with all the bit players chiming in. Maybe the Black Box had details of his undiscovered early marriage.

There is a reference by an NCO who worked for him says that he was the "Identification Officer"

I am dear Sirs,

Yours very truly

and sadly

[corisande]

Latest update is that I have heard from Dave Lees in South Africa. I must say, I thought I had found the real heir to the Baronetcy, but in fact a simpler, but not obvious, truth to his surname

Cecil Lees was married to my fathers mother, her name was Jean King Paterson (maiden name), so my surname is derived from that relationship. However he is definitely not my bloodline, Cecil Lees was killed in 1921 but my father was born in 1923. That is why I say my surname is inherited from him but definitely not my bloodline. Interestingly my father was exceptionally cagey about his father whenever questioned, and the only information I ever got from him was the name Cecil Harcourt Lees.

[David_Underdown]

This one http://www.flickr.com/photos/11226331@N05/5224885276/in/set-72157625387086803/ describes him as identification officer.

Think it might be http://www.flickr.com/photos/11226331@N05/5224886470/in/set-72157625387086803/, which unfortunately is slightly blurred, which mentions fingerprints. If I have chance I'll take anoher photo of that page.

Presumably most of the Chinese Labour Corps workers would not have been literate (in English anyway), and may not have had much by way of ID papers, one could imagine that fingerprinting was therefore useful.

[David_Underdown]

I that in your write up you may have confused Streatham Cemetery (run by Lambeth BC) and Streatham Park Cemetery, which doesn't seem to be administered by any council.

[corisande]

Thanks, you are quite right, I have corrected the cemetery information

That blurred page is the one - I can make out "previously in Foreign Labour Dept, Finger Print Branch and believed in employment as ?? manager", but cannot work out whose finger print dept, nor what sort of manager he was employed as. So a re-look at the page at some point would be useful

I have asked Dave Lees in SA, whom I am in direct contact with now, if he can fill in anything of Cecil Lees life in SA

[corisande]

One learns something every day on the Forum. I have started looking into Chinese Labour Corps. You are quite correct about the use of finger prints (all Chinamen look the same as I think the Duke of Edinburgh said once)

Contemporary account about fingerprinting them on this link

[David_Underdown]

I think the missing word is compound - as in the description on his second marriage certificate, compound manager. I don't believe there was anymore info than you've managed to decipher. My assumption is that this was a fuller description of his role as a South African civil servant. I think there was quite a lot of Chinese and Indian identured labour employed in SA (Gandhi actually first came to prominence in SA).

Aha, a google search on "foreign labour department" brings up quite a few interesting looking things - there certainly was such a department in SA, and there does seem to have been a connection with Chinese labour.