[Cyprus Content] – [Luke, Sir Harry / Lukach, Harry] Storrs, Sir Ronald Henry Amherst.

Typed Letter Signed (TLS) from Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs to Sir Harry Luke. The two – page letter was written by Storrs during the finalization of his posting in Jerusalem as Governor of Jerusalem and Judea and reached Sir Harry while he was still Colonial Secretary in Sierra Leone. The Letter touches on the uprooting Storrs and his family feel after 9 years of ‘anchors and tentacles’ [in Jerusalem]. In the letter, which is marked ‘Private – Pl[ease] destroy’, Storrs reports somehow cryptic on a project to get Luke somehow to Cyprus so they can work together again. Storrs reminisces how he looks back with gratitude, pleasure and regret to his collaboration with Luke. Storrs also reflects on a journey: ‘We came out by Paris (where I saw the finest collection of Rhodian plates in the world), Assisi (having named the street here after St. Francis in the spring), Rome (heard Mussolini and saw Gasparri), Athens (warned one or two prominent Cypriots against any political back-chat), Alexandria (to pack my collection of icons and alabaster) and finally Jerusalem whence, on the 29th, H.M.S. Cornflower will remove my wife, self, A.D.C. and about 70 packing cases to Famagusta which we hope to reach on the Feast of St.Andrew, he being, I believe, the Patron Saint of the Island”. In a Post Scriptum Storrs reports.

[This item is part of the Sir Harry Luke – Archive / Collection]. Jerusalem, 11th November 1926. Folio. 2 pages with original envelope. From the private collection / library of colonial governor, diplomat and historian, Sir Harry Luke.

Sir Harry Charles Luke KCMG GCStJ (born Harry Charles Lukach) (4 December 1884 – 11 May 1969) was an official in the British Colonial Office. He served in Barbados, Cyprus, Transcaucasia, Sierra Leone, Palestine, Malta, the British Western Pacific Territories and Fiji. He is the author of some books on several of these countries. (Wikipedia)


Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs KCMG CBE (19 November 1881 – 1 November 1955) was an official in the British Foreign and Colonial Office. He served as Oriental Secretary in Cairo, Military Governor of Jerusalem, Governor of Cyprus, and Governor of Northern Rhodesia. The eldest son of John Storrs, the Dean of Rochester. His wife was Louisa Lucy née Littleton, born in Chelsea, 18 Aug, 1876; she married first, Henry Arthur Clowes, in Lichfield in Q3, 1899. She died in Hastings in Q2, 1970. Ronald Storrs was educated at Charterhouse School and Pembroke College, Cambridge where he gained a first class degree in the Classical Tripos.
Storrs entered the Finance Ministry of the Egyptian Government in 1904, five years later becoming Oriental Secretary to the British Agency, succeeding Harry Boyle in this post. In 1917 Storrs became Political Officer representing the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia as Liaison officer for the Anglo-French mission in Baghdad and Mesopotamia where he met Gertrude Bell and Sir Percy Cox.

T. E. Lawrence commented in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

“The first of all of us was Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the Residency, the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East, and subtly efficient, despite his diversion of energy in love of music and letters, of sculpture, painting, of whatever was beautiful in the world’s fruit… Storrs was always first, and the great man among us”.

Storrs is credited with a classic example of British understatement when referring to the behaviour of the British toward the many tribal and regional leaders that the British were trying to influence in “The Great Game”: “we deprecated the imperative, preferring instead the subjunctive or even, wistfully, the optative mood”.

During the First World War Storrs was a member of the Arab Bureau and a participant in the negotiations between the Sharif Husayn and the British government and in the organisation of the Arab Revolt. His own personal positions were that the Sharif Husayn was asking for more Arab territory than he had any right to, and that Syria and Palestine should be incorporated into a British-sponsored Egyptian Empire as a replacement for the Ottoman Empire, a plan which was never implemented. Storrs is thought to have underestimated Arab Muslim resistance to non-Muslim rule.
In 1917 Storrs became, as he said, “the first military governor of Jerusalem since Pontius Pilate”, for which purpose he was given the army rank of colonel. He was in fact the second British military governor of Jerusalem, succeeding Brigadier General Neville Travers Borton, also known as Borton Pasha, who resigned after two weeks due to ill health. In 1921 he became Civil Governor of Jerusalem and Judea. In both positions he attempted to support Zionism while protecting the rights of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, and thus earned the hostility of both sides. He devoted much of his time to cultural matters, including town planning, and to Pro-Jerusalem, a cultural organisation that he founded.

In 1919, Storrs was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

The country’s (Palestine/Israel) first chess club was the International Chess Club founded in Jerusalem in 1918 by Sir Ronald Storrs. International Chess Club was an expression of the hope that it would be a chess club that would unite the different nations – local Arabs and Jews, and European Christians of various nations who were then stationed in the city – and help promote peace and understanding. Unfortunately the club closed within a year of its founding, due to the increasing tensions between the Arabs and Jews. A genuine chess enthusiast, Storrs also helped to organise in 1919 the city’s first championship which was won by Shaul Gordon, the founder and director of Mercantile Bank and a pivotal figure in the city’s public and cultural life.

From 1926–1932 Storrs was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus, a period which included an attempted revolt (1931) during which Government House was burned to the ground. He was then appointed Governor of Northern Rhodesia in 1932. He retired for health reasons in 1934, at the age of 53. From “The Times”, probably Jan 1934:–

“The health of Sir Ronald Storrs has always belied his robust exterior. Now it seems likely to deprive the Colonial Office of one of its most versatile officials. Only by rigid asceticism – he is a non-smoker, a teetotaller, and, as a rule, an unwilling vegetarian – has he managed hitherto to pursue his career.

This started in Egypt, where Lord Kitchener found his talents as a linguist and a collector equally valuable. I have been told that Lord Duveen once offered him a partnership. Admittedly he is a first-rate authority and buys and time and Saracenic art.
Sir Ronald is a cousin of Lord Brownlow.″

Storrs was one of the six pallbearers at the funeral of T. E. Lawrence in 1935.

In 1937 he published his memoirs Orientations (US edition The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs). Between 1937 and 1945 he served on the London County Council, and during the Second World War he broadcast for the Ministry of Information. He died in 1955 aged 73, and is buried at St John the Baptist Church, Pebmarsh. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: ALS · ALS (Autographed Letter – signed) · British Colonial Administration · British Colonial History · Colonial History · Colonial History – Rare · Cyprus · Cyprus Content (Typed Letter Signed – TLS) · Cyprus Content / Sir Harry Luke Collection · Harry Luke – Cyprus / WW I (1911-1919) · Luke, Sir Harry · Middle East · Middle Eastern History · Middle Eastern History – Rare · Palestine · Palestine – Content / Sir Harry Luke Collection · Palestine Content (Typed Letter Signed – TLS) · Sir Harry Luke · Sir Harry Luke – Personal Archive of Books and Correspondence · Sir Harry Luke Collection · Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 30253AB

EUR 275.000,--