Kenneth O'Connor: Difference between revisions

{{More citations needed|date=December 2008}}

'''Sir Kenneth Kennedy O'Connor''' <small>[[Order of the British Empire|KBE]] [[Military Cross|MC]] [[Queen's Counsel|QC]]</small> (21 December 1896 – 13 January 1985) was a soldier, lawyer and judge who served in the [[Colonial Service|British Colonial Service]].

In 1915, he joined the [[British Indian Army]] as an officer in the [[14th King George's Own Ferozepore Sikhs]]. He was awarded the [[Military Cross]] "for distinguished and meritorious services" at the [[Battle of Sharqat]], during the campaign in [[Mesopotamia]] against the Turks. Sir Kenneth later wrote a short account of the [[Battle of Sharqat]]. After the war he left the Indian Army with the rank of captain, though he was later made an honorary colonel.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} Having left the army, he joined the Foreign & Political Department of the Government of India, serving as the British District Commissioner in [[Charsadda]], a district adjoining the [[Khyber Pass]].{{citation needed|date=May 2012}}

In 1922, he left India and returned to England, where he was [[call to the bar|called to the London Bar]] in 1924 by [[Gray's Inn]].{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} After a short time practising at the London Bar, he became a partner in the firm of [[Drew & Napier]] in [[Singapore]]. In Singapore, he met and married Margaret Helen Wise, the eldest daughter of the rubber planter Percy Furlong Wise, of the Devonshire dynasty.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}} As Chairman of the Straits Settlements Association, O'Connor played a key role in planning the civilian evacuation of the island in the event of a [[Japanese Occupation of Singapore|Japanese invasion]]. He escaped from Singapore in a small, open sailing boat with unsuitable sails and a children's atlas for navigation. Despite these impediments, with three others, he successfully sailed to [[Sumatra]]. O'Connor later wrote a short account of this adventure, entitled ''Four Men in a Boat''. He had already evacuated his young family (Anthony, born 1933 and Hugh, born 1940) to [[Australia]], where he later joined them.{{citation needed|date=May 2012}}

[[Category:Chief Justices of Jamaica]]

[[Category:Chief Justices of Kenya]]