Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807 - 1886) - 'Father of modern civil service'

Trevelyan, one of England's most dedicated and skilled civil servants, was born in Taunton and educated at Charterhouse. His ability to learn foreign languages led to his posting as a writer to the East India Company's civil service in Bengal in 1826. A year later he was named assistant to the English commissioner at Delhi. For the next four years he made it his special work to improve the living conditions of the local Indian population and to modernise trade, by eliminating duties on internal trade.

The 1830s were important to Trevelyan for a number of reasons, chief among them that he married Hannah Moore, the sister of Thomas Macaulay, the great historian, who was then a member of the Supreme Council of India. Trevelyan himself had taken a post in the government in Calcutta where he devoted himself to the cause of education, particularly of providing Indians with schooling in European science and literature.

By 1840, Trevelyan had returned to London where for the next 19 years he served as assistant secretary of the treasury. For his work as administrator of relief to famine-stricken Ireland from 1845-1847 he was named a KCB.

His most lasting contribution to his nation, however, began in the 1850s with the publication of his and Sir Stafford Northcote's report on 'The Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service'. The report led to the transformation of the civil service from a haven for not-necessarily well-qualified aristocrats. Educational standards and competitive admission examinations ensured that a more qualified body of civil servants would become administrators. Now regarded as the father of the modern civil service, Trevelyan is portrayed as Sir Gregory Harlines in Anthony Trollope's The Three Clerks (1858).

In 1858, after the uprising known as the Indian Mutiny, Trevelyan was returned to India as governor of Madras where his reforms of the police, reassured the population. Trevelyan was, however, recalled following his release of some government information that was deemed an act 'subversive to all authority.'

He was vindicated and returned to India as finance minister from 1862 to 1865. In his later years in England he was involved in various charitable enterprises and supported other important reforms regarding the purchase of army commissions and advancements, as well as the organisation of a standing army.

 

Hugh Trenchard (1873-1956) - Father of the 'RAF'

Hugh Trenchard helped to lay the foundations of the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War One.

Born on 3 February 1873 in Taunton, Somerset, Trenchard entered the British army in 1893 and took part in the South African War of 1899-1902 (suffering a severe lung wound), and again later in Nigeria.

Returning home to Britain through illness in 1912 Trenchard learned to fly at T.O.M. Sopwith's Flying School and the following year was made assistant commander of the Central Flying School in Wiltshire.

With war declared Trenchard was placed at the head of the nascent Royal Flying Corps, first at home and then in France in 1915; at that time the RFC was merely a branch of the army.

While commanding the RFC Trenchard established a policy of claiming air superiority by launching successive waves of attacks in order to gain air control - an approach that quickly became standard RFC (and later RAF) policy, although Trenchard attracted much contemporary (and subsequent) criticism for despatching obsolete aircraft on fighting missions with great consequent loss of life.

Trenchard also focussed the RFC's efforts upon ensuring that his air crews provided adequate support for forces on the ground.  Much admired by Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig, he was appointed Chief of Air Staff in January 1918 (the year he was knighted) but resigned his position three months later following a quarrel with Lord Rothermere, the Air Secretary.

Later the same year, in June 1918, Trenchard was given responsibility for the organisation of the Inter-allied Independent Bomber Force, consisting of a collection of heavy RAF bombers intended to raid rail and industrial targets in Germany.

Re-appointed Chief of Air Staff by War and Air Minister Winston Churchill in 1919 (the year he was created a baronet) Trenchard founded training colleges for air cadets and staff officers and introduced a system of short-service commissions so as to provide a reservoir of trained personnel should the need arise.

Remaining Chief of Staff until 1927 Trenchard was made the first marshal of the RAF in that year, retiring two years later.  In 1930 he was created a baron and the following year appointed commissioner of the London metropolitan police, serving until 1935.  As commissioner he implemented a series of reforms including the establishment of the police training college at Hendon.

In 1936 he was created a viscount and entered private business, acting as chairman of the United Africa Company until 1953.  Regarded by many as 'the father of the RAF', Hugh Trenchard died on 10 February 1956 in London at the age of 83.