Sir George Vandeleur Fiddes
(1858-1936), Colonial administrator and politicianSitter in 2 portraits
by Bassano Ltd
whole-plate glass negative, 11 January 1919
NPG x158447
by Bassano Ltd
whole-plate glass negative, 11 January 1919
NPG x158448
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John M. Carland
02 November 2015, 09:00
Sir George Fiddes played a substantial role in my PHD thesis (Univ of Toronto, 1977) and thus in the published form of the thesis (The Colonial Office and Nigeria, 1898-1914, Macmillan, 1985). Fiddes was smart, capable, and, as well, arrogant. He had a pithy way of expressing himself in his minutes. One of my favourite sayings of his, one I have had recreated in a calligraphic work of art and which I have used in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post, and which the museum might want to use goes as follows: "The inevitable result of getting something done is a crop of suggestions as to how much better it would have been to do it differently." in the minute he was grousing about dealing with his counterparts at the Treasury. Though perhaps not significant, it is, or so I believe, a wise and interesting statement about human behaviour not only in a bureaucracy but in life.
Dr Ben Knighton
14 June 2019, 12:26
Sir George Vandeleur Fiddes (1858–1936) GCMG, CB was the former Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
He was born in Great Yarmouth, the son of George Richard Fiddes and Ellen Greening. He was educated at Dulwich College, his grandmother Jane Greening being a pensioner of the Dulwich College Estate when he was 12 and with whom he was living along with his mother Ellen in 1871.[1] He was subsequently a scholar of Brasenose College, Oxford where he took a second-class in Classical Moderations in 1879.
Fiddes entered the Colonial Office in 1881. He was promoted First Class Clerk, after long service as private secretary, in 1896. He went on to be appointed as Imperial Secretary and Accountant to Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, in 1897. In 1900 he was made Secretary to the Transvaal Administration and he returned to the Colonial Office as Principal Clerk in 1902. In 1909 he became Assistant Under-Secretary of State and Permanent Under-Secretary in February 1916. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1917.