David Monteath
{{Short description|British civil servant}}
File:Sir David Taylor Monteath.jpg
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
Sir David Taylor Monteath {{postnominals|country=GBR|KCB|KCSI|KCMG|CVO|OBE}} (7 April 1887 – 27 September 1961) was a British civil servant, working at the India Office in London, who was the last Permanent Under Secretary of State for India and Burma before independence meant that the post was no longer required.{{cite news |title= Obituary: Sir David Monteath – The India Office |work=The Times |date=29 September 1961 |page= 15 }}
Early life and education
Monteath was born in Barton Regis Hundred, Gloucestershire,England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915 the youngest son of Sir James Monteath, an Indian Civil Servant of the Bombay Cadre, who, for some time in 1903, had functioned as Acting Governor of Bombay. His elder brother was John Monteath. Sir David was educated at Clifton College"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p196: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948 and Trinity College, Oxford.
Career
In 1910, Monteath originally joined the Admiralty as an Admiralty Clerk Class I, but transferred the very next year to the India Office as a junior clerk in the Correspondence Department. During the First World War, however, he went back temporarily to the Admiralty, being commissioned as a temporary Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and receiving an OBE in 1918. He returned in 1919 as Private Secretary to the then Under Secretary of State, Sir Thomas Holderness, followed by Sir William Duke and Sir Arthur Hirtzel. In 1927, he became Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for India, F. E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, the great friend of Sir Winston Churchill. He continued to act in this capacity till 1931, when he was promoted as Assistant Under-Secretary of State looking after the affairs of the Indian and Burmese Round Table Conferences, especially the Burmese, where he was Secretary to the Conference. In 1937, he was given independent charge of Burmese Affairs as Under-Secretary of State, till 1941, when with Sir Findlater Stewart going off into what he considered to be more pressing wartime work, he became Under-Secretary for both India and Burma, and there he remained till the independence of both countries made his post unnecessary.
Honours
Monteath was appointed an OBE in 1918, a CVO in 1931, a CB in 1938, a KCMG in 1941, a KCB in 1944, and a KCSI in 1948. He received numerous honours and awards after retirement
He died in Abingdon, Berkshire in 1961.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monteath, David}}
Category:People educated at Clifton College
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford
Category:20th-century Royal Navy personnel
Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath
Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India
Category:Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Category:Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for India
Category:Civil servants in the Admiralty
Category:Private secretaries in the British Civil Service
Category:Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I
Category:Foreign Office personnel of World War II
{{UK-gov-bio-stub}}