Charles Roger Alan Swynnerton

1 portrait of Charles Roger Alan Swynnerton

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Charles Roger Alan Swynnerton

by Walter Stoneman
bromide print, 1955
5 3/4 in. x 4 1/8 in. (145 mm x 105 mm) image size
Commissioned, 1955
Photographs Collection
NPG x185570

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Walter Stoneman (1876-1958), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 18527 portraits, Sitter in 8 portraits.

Events of 1955back to top

Current affairs

Robert Anthony Eden becomes prime minister. In May 1955 Winston Churchill resigned due to ill health. His successor proved to be a similarly popular leader, winning an increased majority at the general election that year. Eden's popularity was due to a combination of his long wartime service, good looks and charm.

Art and science

Mary Quant introduces the 'Chelsea Look' with her Bazaar boutique. In the 1960s Quant was a major contributor to 'swinging London' introducing some of the seminal items of 1960s fashion: the miniskirt, hot pants, paint-box make-up and plastic raincoats.

International

West Germany joins NATO, prompting the East European Communist counties to respond by forming the Warsaw Pact. The signatories of the Warsaw Pact pledged to defend each other if any member was attacked. This development was a major event in the Cold War as it firmly established the East and West as opposing military powers.

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John Swynnerton

21 May 2022, 17:59

Charles Roger Alan Swynnerton was born in Simla, North India on the 12th February 1901, the second son of Frederick Swynnerton, Artist, and Louise Angelo.
He was commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's) in 1920. He joined the 1st Battalion on the Curragh and accompanied it to Gibraltar, Eastern Thrace and Turkey, and Secunderabad in India. Then followed two years in Sierra Leone, where for a time (in 1926) he was also appointed an Inspector of Police by the Governor.
In 1926 he married Clares Ines Stevenson, and they had two sons, Jeremy Charles Angelo and Timothy Frederick.
From 1926 until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 he served with his regiment in Lichfield, Ballykinler and Gibraltar. He attended Staff College in 1933 followed by tours on the Staff in Malta, Palestine and Transjordan, York and the War Office where he was serving at the outbreak of war. After a brief spell with his Regiment in Aldershot, in 1940 he was sent on promotion to a Staff post in Nigeria where two divisions were being raised and trained for service in Burma. In 1942 he commanded a battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment for a short time followed by command of the 6th Battalion the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1942/3.
His main service, however, was to be once again with the Royal West African Frontier Force ("RWAFF"). In September 1943 he assumed command of the 1st (West African) Infantry Brigade which he organised and trained in Nigeria. He took the Brigade to Burma in 1944 as part of the 82nd West African Division and led it throughout the Arakan campaign until the end of the war. There were few roads, and most supplies, stores and equipment had to be transported by porters (called Auxiliary Groups) over the entire 500 miles of the Arakan mountains. At the end of the war, during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, he was appointed to command of the Division and took it back to Nigeria to be disbanded.
It is interesting to note that at this time his official rank was Major (War Substantive Lt.Col.) (Temporary Brigadier) (Acting Major General). In 1946 he was appointed General Officer Commanding Nigeria District and a member of the Executive Council of Nigeria on the 17th January 1947. He was Acting GOC-in-C at the time of the first serious post-war disturbances in West Africa (the Gold Coast of 1948) when reinforcement troops were flown in from neighbouring Nigeria in a hotch-potch of civil and military aircraft.
Charles Swynnerton was very much loved by his African soldiers and gained the respect, confidence and friendship of many of the local leaders who later came to prominence in Nigeria.
For his services in Nigeria he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on the 2nd January 1950. After leaving Nigeria he was appointed British Military Attaché on the 25th September 1949 to what the Foreign Office still rather quaintly called Angora, in Turkey, where his fluency in the Turkish language was a great asset and much admired by the Turks. Just prior to this tour, he was appointed ADC to HM King George VI from 22nd June 1949 until the latter's death in 1952, and subsequently ADC to HM Queen Elizabeth II. After holding the post in Turkey for what must surely be a record period of almost five years, he retired on the 21st July 1954 to a house in Hampshire. He was appointed Colonel Commandant of the RWAFF on 23rd September 1954 and Colonel of the North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's) on 1st June 1955, an achievement without parallel in the history of his regiment.
While on an official visit to troops in Sierra Leone in March 1953 in his capacity as Colonel Commandant of the RWAFF, he became dangerously ill in Freetown and had to be brought home by sea. Although he recovered fully, he was forced to resign both these appointments and he and his wife eventually decided to leave England and settled in Spain where they built themselves a house near Malaga. After almost fifteen years of retirement in Spain both he and his wife became ill and died in London in 1973 within a few months of each other.
Major General Charles Swynnerton was a keen and talented writer of short stories. In 1938 he won second prize in the Royal United Service Institution's Trench Gascoigne Memorial Essay Competition. He had a large number of articles published regularly under a variety of pseudonyms in such papers and magazines as The Times, Blackwood's Magazine, The Illustrated London News and, of course, his Regimental Magazines.