Francis Edmund Storrs (1883 – 10/11 November 1918) was a British academic and intelligence agent. He was the younger brother of Arabist and colonial administrator

Sir Ronald Storrs Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs (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 No ...

. He was educated at

Radley College Radley College, formally St Peter's College, Radley, is a public school (independent boarding school for boys) near Radley, Oxfordshire, England, which was founded in 1847. The school covers including playing fields, a golf course, a lake, and ...

from 1897 to 1902, and then at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, where he received a BA; he won scholarships at both institutions He was a professor at

Elphinstone College Elphinstone College is one of the constituent colleges of Dr. Homi Bhabha State University, a state cluster university. Established in 1823, it is one of the oldest colleges in Mumbai. It played a major role in shaping and developing the ed ...

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

in 1908, and then at

Rangoon College '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

in 1912. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in 1911. On 28 November 1912, he married Catherine Josephine Schiff (d. 1956 Dec. quarter, Westminster). During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he initially worked for the

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in matters concerned with supplying Russia; he was awarded the Russian Order of St. Anne for this service. In 1916-17 he served with the

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

in Greece with the rank of Lieutenant, then in 1917 with the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

in the Aegean. At the time, large areas of Greece were effectively under Allied military occupation, nominally controlled by the

Venizelist Venizelism ( el, Βενιζελισμός) was one of the major political movements in Greece from the 1900s until the mid-1970s. Main ideas Named after Eleftherios Venizelos, the key characteristics of Venizelism were: *Greek irredentism: T ...

government. Storrs was responsible for the passport control and port control of some thirty islands in the

Cyclades The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...

, and in effect for all counter-espionage work in this area. He suffered the unusual indignity, in May 1917, of losing his front teeth to his own gunfire; whilst test-firing a surplus three-pounder gun they had mounted to a yacht, he ignored a warning to remove his pipe, and the recoil knocked out two teeth. He worked under

Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish independence, Scottish nation ...

, who left a favourable portrait of him in ''Ægean Memories'' (p. 25): ::''...without torrs whatever fruits our work in the Cyclades bore could never have been achieved. Virgil and Horace spoke at his summons, and he commanded all the elegance of light verse that is the Cambridge man's prerogative.'' ::''His conscientiousness was almost excessive. Night after night he would be working on the files of his office until two or three in the morning after a hard day's work of almost incessant worrying interviews. He was a martyr to bad headaches, but I never heard him give way to more than a weary groan of expostulation when human folly or vice was seeming unendurable any longer. I can never repay Francis Storrs in this world for his personal loyalty and devoted service.'' In the autumn of 1917 he left Athens, and moved back to London, where he was in residence in May 1918. He died in Chelsea, of the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

, on the 10th or 11 November 1918. Sources vary; it is likely he died at some point in the night, and did not live to see the Armistice. A bell at

Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Kent. The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the s ...

, where his father was Dean, was dedicated in his memory in 1921, as was a French prize at Radley College.

References

*''Radley College Register 1847-1962'', 1965.
Rochester Cathedral
*''Ægean Memories'', Compton Mackenzie, 1940. {{DEFAULTSORT:Storrs, Francis 1883 births 1918 deaths Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Deaths from Spanish flu People educated at Radley College Secret Intelligence Service personnel Royal Navy officers of World War I Academic staff of the University of Yangon Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I