Sir Charles Augustus Tegart KCIE MVO KPM JP (5 October 1881 – 6 April 1946) was an Irish police officer who served extensively in British India and Palestine.

Early life

Born in Derry on 5 October 1881, Tegart was the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, Rev. Joseph Poulter Tegart of Dunboyne, County Meath, and his wife Georgina Johnston. He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and briefly at Trinity College, Dublin.^[1] He retained contacts there and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1933. Prior to his roles in India, he served as chief assistant to Ormonde Winter, the head of British Intelligence operations in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence.

Career in India

He joined the Calcutta Police in 1901, eventually becoming head of its Detective Department.

He was the first officer of the Indian Imperial Police (IMP) in the Council and on his report its Special Branch was created.

He was awarded the King's Police Medal in 1911. He became Superintendent of Police in 1908, Deputy Commissioner in 1913, Deputy-Inspector General (Intelligence) in 1918, and Commissioner of Calcutta Police from 1923 to 1931.

Charles Tegart tried to suppress the nationalists of India such as Jatindranath Mukherjee at Balasore in Orissa on 9 September 1915.

He was appointed a member of the Secretary of State's Indian Council in December 1931.

Career in Palestine

In view of his expertise, the British authorities sent him to the British Mandate of Palestine, then in the throes of the Arab Revolt, to advise the Inspector General on matters of security. He arrived there in December 1937.^[2]

In due course, he advised the construction of 77 reinforced concrete police stations and posts which could be defended against the attack, and of a frontier fence along the northern border of Palestine to control the movement of insurgents, goods, and weapons. His recommendations were accepted and 62 new "Tegart forts",^[3] as they came to be known, were built throughout Palestine, however all but a few located along the Lebanese border were built after the Arab Revolt, in 1940–41.^[4] Many of them are still in use, some by Israeli forces and others by Palestinian ones, while others were destroyed in various rounds of fighting.^[5]

Tegart also was the mastermind behind the establishment of the Arab Investigation Centres in Palestine during the Great Arab revolt. The centres were for the interrogation of suspected Arab insurgents, and torture was frequently used during interrogations. Tactics used include the Turkish practice of falaka (beating prisoners on the soles of their feet), though some historians have claimed that there is no conclusive proof to be found in Tegart's personal papers in support of the accusations that he personally oversaw interrogation centres or that he developed new torture techniques.^[2][4]

World War II

In 1942, Tegart headed up operations at the Ministry of Food in wartime Britain to combat the black market.^[6]

See also

• Arab Investigation Centres, built under the direction of Charles Tegart
• Cellular Jail
• Bagha Jatin, comments by Tegart on his death
• Herbert Dowbiggin, British colonial policeman

References

Further reading

• Tutun Mukherjee, "Colonialism, Surveillance and Memoirs of travel: Tegart's Diaries and the Andaman Cellular Jail", in Sachidananda Mohanty (ed.) Travel writing and the Empire, Katha, 2004. ISBN 81-87649-36-4. See also a review of this book^[usurped] in The Hindu.
• Sir Charles Tegart Collection Archived 4 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, held at St Antony's College, Oxford University.
• 'Charles Tegart of the Indian Police': an unpublished biography by Lady Tegart, Mss Eur C235 in British Library, Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections.