Charles Chenevix Trench

(Obit. of 29 Nov 2003)

Charles Chenevix Trench, who died on Wednesday aged 89, became the author of a wide variety of popular historical works after serving as an Indian Army officer in the 1930s, winning an MC during the Second World War and then becoming a district commissioner in Kenya.

Employing a crisp, anecdotal style, he wrote 19 books, including three classic accounts of British India: The Indian Army and the King's Enemies, 1900-1947; The Frontier Scouts; and The Viceroy's Agent.

His interest in the 18th century led to Portrait of a Patriot, a biography of the demagogue John Wilkes who nevertheless established important constitutional freedoms, and The Royal Malady, a witty study of George III's madness which drew on the unpublished papers of the King's physician, Sir George Baker, and the diary of Dr John Willis. He also produced The Western Risings, a judicious account of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, and Grace's Card, Irish Catholic Landlords 1690-1800.

Charley Gordon was a reassessment which revealed a humorous element in the Victorian general who had been attacked by Lytton Strachey; and The Great Dan showed the strong imperial streak in the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell. There was also The Poacher and the Squire, a survey in which Chenevix Trench drew on personal experience, since he admitted that he had done "a bit of big game poaching" in India, although he had also been concerned with game preservation in Kenya. Two other amusing potboilers were A History of Horsemanship and A History of Marksmanship, which reflected his love of the outdoors.

The Desert's Dusty Face, describing his career in Kenya, was a collection of true stories which abounded with Wodehousian wit and jibes at American hunters. It was written to make readers feel as though they, too, were making a safari around a remote district.

A descendant of an Archbishop of Dublin and the son Sir Richard Chenevix Trench, a member of the Indian Political Service, Charles Pocklington Chenevix Trench was born on June 29 1914 at Simla, India. He was educated at Winchester, concluding after a year that he must be rather "wet" because he had not been beaten; he proceeded to take steps to remedy this deficiency.

"With some difficulty, and after several warnings about untidiness and so forth, I succeeded," he recalled in a letter to The Telegraph. "It was, of course, disagreeable, but left no permanent scars on my personality or my person . . . For my last three years I spent most of my spare time fishing, and tying trout flies for sale at the local tackle-shop. Although these pursuits contributed nothing to the honour of the house, I was neither persecuted nor mocked for them."

After reading PPE at Magdalen College, Oxford, Chenevix Trench was commissioned into Hodson's Horse, the Indian cavalry regiment, which was serving in Persia, Iraq and Syria on the outbreak of war. He then attached himself to the 12th Lancers for the closing weeks of the British First Army's advance into Tunisia in 1943.

The following year he was sent on a course at Benevenuto in Italy, from which he took "French leave" to visit a brother Hodson's Horseman, who was GSO 1 of 8th Indian Division. This led to his attachment to 1st/12th (Northwest) Frontier Force Regiment with which, as a fluent Pushtu speaker, he was put into the Pathan company. When the company commander was killed, Chenevix Trench took over, and a few weeks later led a successful night attack on the German position on the last ridge overlooking Assisi.

By then, however, his regiment had tracked him down, and demanded his instant return to Syria. Here he learned that he had been awarded an immediate MC for his conduct during the attack near Assisi; the citation recorded that Major Chenevix Trench had "set a magnificent example of coolness and disregard for his personal safety", and that "the success achieved by C Company was largely due to his inspiration and leadership".

In 1946 Chenevix Trench retired from the Army to follow his father into the Indian Political for the 18 months until Partition; he then became district commissioner in the Kenyan colonial government. He served in the Northern Frontier district, before moving to Nanyuki. In addition to learning Swahili, he was the only officer in the district who spoke Somali, essential to understanding the problems posed by infiltrators from over the border.

When he made his two-week safaris, Chenevix Trench insisted on being accompanied by the troop of tribal police, which was mounted either on Abyssinian ponies, or on horses which they had been allowed to catch on European ranches for £5 each; this enabled him to get a far closer feel for the people and their way of life than if he had travelled by vehicle. The only interruption came during the Mau Mau emergency, when his combination of Kenyan and military experience led him to be brought back to Nairobi as GSO 2 (Civil) to the Director of Operations.

During the run-up to independence, the colonial administration decided to hold a census of the population for the benefit of the incoming native government. But one British officer of the King's African Rifles, who was responsible for the count, was unsure about how to record five soldiers who had registered as "Jesus Christ", and four who claimed to be "Agatha Christie". Chenevix Trench, the returning officer, was writing an article about Jacobean table manners when he was asked for advice. Without looking up, he replied "Doesn't matter a bugger provided you don't call any of them Son of God!"

After independence in 1963, Chenevix Trench retired once again to embark on a new career. His cousin, Anthony Chenevix-Trench, who had just been appointed Headmaster of Eton, invited him to join the staff. However, he decided instead to go to Millfield, in Somerset, where he taught English, Swahili, Urdu, history, symbolic logic and polo for six years. He now retired for the last time, to Nenagh, Co Tipperary, to concentrate on his books, and on hunting, fishing and farming; one year he named two turkeys Hitler and Goebbels, so that he would not mind killing them for Christmas.

For 20 years he composed a lucid monthly article on current affairs for that pillar of Empire, Blackwood's Magazine, under the pseudonym "The Looker On"; he also reviewed books regularly for the Irish Times and the Irish Independent.

Charles Chenevix Trench married, first, Jane Gretton, with whom he had a son, who predeceased him, and two daughters. After their divorce he married Mary Kirkbride, with whom he had two daughters.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1448007/Charles-Chenevix-Trench.html


Explanation of the name:

Melesina Chenevix was a society beauty of Huguenot extraction.  In 1803 she married Richard Trench, who was also well-connected.  She was so highly regarded by her two sons Francis and Richard that, after her death, they changed their surnames to Chenevix-Trench.  Richard went on to become Archbishop of Dublin in the Church of Ireland (Anglican).  He was also a well-regarded poet and an intellectual of his day. He had 14 children and  Charles Pocklington Chenevix Trench  (above) was one of his grandsons (via Richard Chenevix Trench).