Harold MacMichael

Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael GCMG DSO
Sir Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner for Palestine at sunken garden in the residency.
Governor of Tanganyika
In office 19 February 1934 – 8 July 1938
Preceded by	George Stewart Symes
Succeeded by	Mark Aitchison Young
High Commissioner of Palestine
In office 3 March 1938 – 30 August 1944
Preceded by	Arthur Grenfell Wauchope
Succeeded by	John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort
Personal details
Born	1882
Died	1969

Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael GCMG DSO (1882 – 1969), was a British colonial administrator.

Educated at Bedford School, MacMichael graduated with a first from Magdalene College, Cambridge. After passing his civil service exam, he entered the service of the British Empire in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He then served in the Blue Nile province until 1915 when he became a senior inspector of Khartoum province, rising to the position of civil secretary in 1926. In 1933 he became Governor of Tanganyika until 1937.

The next year he became High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine and was blamed for sending at least 768 Jewish refugees aboard MV Struma to their deaths. Seven unsuccessful attempts, mainly by Lehi, were undertaken to assassinate him during his sojourn in Palestine. In the last, both he and his wife narrowly escaped death in an ambush Lehi mounted on 8 August 1944 on the eve of his replacement as High Commissioner.

MacMichael also served a stint as High Commissioner of Malta.

The British Military Administration set to task of reviving pre-war plans for centralised control over the Malay states within days after British Allied forces landed in Singapore on 5 September 1945.