Harry James Goulter Pearman
1881-1962
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League of Nations Mandates At the end of the Great War, the Allied and Associated Powers, rather than incorporating conquered territories into their own empires, established League of Nations mandates from the non-Turkish parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire and the imperial possessions of Wilhelmine Germany. It was the role of the mandatory power to guide the mandate towards an independent place in the family of nations. |
| Links to other sites about Mesopotamia HERE |
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The journal is divided into irregular sections! To see a précis of each section CLICK HERE
All photographs in the journal, if clicked will be shown full size. To see the full gallery of photographs CLICK HERE
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Soldiers on board the ship Huntsgreen
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Launching lifeboat for man overboard in Red Sea
Several years ago I came across a journal that my Grandfather had written during a two year tour of duty with the Army Audit Staff in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, in the early 1920's. It had passed down from him to my mother on his death and lay for years wrapped up in a cupboard. It consisted of about 950 loose brown pages, hand written in a flowing careful script, mostly in pencil. Accompanying it was an album of some 50 photographs from that period.
I have been slowly typing up the notes over several years! During that time I have marvelled at the detail he managed to put on paper. He was a conscientious diarist, an astute observer and wrote copiously and pointedly about everything around him. His journal provides not only a personal view of a Iraq as it was 80 years ago but also of the environment in which the British expatriate lived and worked.
Harry James Goulter Pearman was born in Teddington in 1881 and educated at his local general school. From there he won a Scholarship to Tiffin School in Kingston on Thames. He qualified for a scholarship to London University - but for financial reasons could not take it. ( Tiffin School was in Surrey and he lived in Middlesex and grants in those days were not transferable ).
He entered the Civil Service from school, went to Evening Classes and on taking the Entrance Examination to the Executive Class of the Civil Service, came first in his class. He started work in the War Office at the outbreak of war in 1914.
In 1920 he was offered a tour of duty with the Army Audit Staff in Mesopotamia, at that time, a British protectorate under mandate from the League of Nations. (see more...) His rank of Major was conferred prior to departure.
On returning to England he continued to work in the War Office and during the Second World War he was Director of Contracts - Ministry of Supply.
He retired from the Civil Service in November 1945 to Hampton, Middlesex and died in 1962.
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