Charles Tegart

 ( 1881 Births ) 

Sir Charles Augustus Tegart (5 October 1881 – 6 April 1946) was an Anglo-Irish police officer who served extensively in /ref>

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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. He retained contacts there and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1933. After his role in India, he served as chief assistant to /ref>

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Career in India He joined the Kolkata 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. Tegart declined the formal appointment as Inspector General of Police in Palestine but agreed to collaborate in an advisory capacity with Sir David Petrie. During his time there, he undertook a major reorganization of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and played a key role in establishing the Rural Mounted Police force. He also oversaw the construction of a fortified barrier system along the Palestine frontier, which included a barbed-wire fence equipped with an electrified detection wire and reinforced by concrete pillboxes at strategic locations. These fortifications came to be known as the "Tegart Wall" and the "Tegart Forts." /ref>

He was awarded the King' /ref>

Charles Tegart tried to suppress the nationalists of India such as Jatindranath Mukherjee at Balasore in Orissa (now /ref>

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

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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.

In due course, he recommended the construction of 77 reinforced concrete police stations and a frontier fence along the northern border of Palestine to control the movement of insurgents, goods, and weapons. His advice was accepted and 62 new "",Anton La Guardia, "Jericho Jail Creates Own Modern History", Arab News, 24 March 2006. 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.Seth J. Frantzman, "Tegart's shadow" , Jerusalem Post /ref>

Tegart is also said to have been behind the establishment of Arab Investigation Centres where suspected Arab insurgents were interrogated and sometimes tortured. Tactics included the Turkish practice of falaka (beating prisoners on the soles of their feet), though some historians have claimed that there is no conclusive proof that he personally oversaw these centres or sanctioned the use of torture.

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World War II In 1942, Tegart headed operations at the Ministry of Food in wartime Britain to combat the black market.

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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

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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. . See also in The Hindu.
• Sir Charles Tegart Collection , 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.

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