Cecil Harcourt Folder LEES

[corisande]

Thanks- yes, I could agree on Compound Manager.

I'll take a bit more time on what he was up to in SA and more about finger printing the Chinese.

One assumes there were plans afoot to use fingerprinting more in Dublin, and I'll put out a feelers on that too.

[David_Underdown]

Updated my last while you were writing yours, I suspect he was doing much the same in the Foreign Labour Department in SA.

[corisande]

Thanks I am going though those now

You were correct about the Gandhi connection

Some three years after the “Cape Chinese Exclusion Act”, similar discriminatory legislation was drafted in the Transvaal Colony. Although this was ostensibly framed for the “Asiatics”, its main concern was the ex-indentured and free Indian influx from Natal. It provided for the compulsory registration of all Asians, including fingerprints for the purposes of identification(Statutes of the Transvaal 1907). This wasfollowed by the 1907 Immigrants Restriction Act,the combined effect of which excluded all Indians who had not obtained domiciliary rights. This resulted in the passive resistance movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, and the separate but equally committed resistance by the Chinese led by Leung Quinn.

[David_Underdown]

The Wikipedia article Henry Classification System states that British administrative use of fingerprinting began in India, and a fingerprint bureau was set up in 1900 in Natal.

I suspect Lees expertise lay mainly in adminstering the filing systems needed for manual processing of fingerprinting, and also in classifying fingerprints int eh first place. Fingerprinting was still very much in its infancy at the time of his death, and fingerprint experts were probably not widely available.

[David_Underdown]

Now commemorated

 

[corisande]

That is good news

I am sure that there is a lot more still to learn about Cecil Lees life.

The unmarked grave that Cecil Lees shared with Montague Bull (died the days Lees was buried) is, to me, something I have not been able to really crack

[corisande]

The unmarked grave that Cecil Lees shared with Montague Bull

I have got the death cert now for Montague Bull, and there appears to be no connection between Montague Bull and Cecil Lees (or Ireland). Montague Bull died of natural causes

1921 Aug 5. Died at 105a Cheyne Walk. His profession given as "Oil Company Traveller". Died of a duodenal ulcer. The death was registered by a Victor Stevens of 5 Windsor Rd, Ealing, who was present at the death.

The Cheyne Walk address was the home of Cecil Lee's brother who was living with and later married a Bull

[IPT]

I rest my case, Mr Corisande.

[corisande]

Still don't know what was in the Black Box though

[IPT]

Ah sorry, it was the other Cecil Lees thread where we were debating Montague Bull's connection.

Anyway, i'm sorry that this line of enquiry came to a dead end.