Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

Frederick Gerard Peake, (12 June 1886 – 30 March 1970), known as Peake Pasha, was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

and police officer and creator of the

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of independent Jordan, with a final Arabization of its command taking place in 1 ...

Military career

The son of Lieutenant Colonel Walter Peake, of

Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray () is a town in Leicestershire, England, north-east of Leicester, and south-east of Nottingham. It lies on the River Eye, known below Melton as the Wreake. The town had a population 27,670 in 2019. The town is sometimes promo ...

, Peake was born at

Epsom Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The ...

on 12 June 1886. He attended

Stubbington House School Stubbington House School was founded in 1841 as a boys' preparatory school, originally located in the Hampshire village of Stubbington, around from the Solent. Stubbington House School was known by the sobriquet "the cradle of the Navy". The sc ...

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufac ...

,'PEAKE, Frederick Gerard', in ''Who Was Who'' (A. & C. Black); online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014
PEAKE, Frederick Gerard
Retrieved 27 July 2016 (subscription site) and graduated from the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

in 1906, being commissioned into the

Duke of Wellington's Regiment The Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, forming part of the King's Division. In 1702, Colonel George Hastings, 8th Earl of Huntingdon, was authorised to raise a new regiment, which he di ...

. He served in India from 1908 to 1913. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Peake served with the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

in Salonica, and was also an officer serving with the

Imperial Camel Corps The Imperial Camel Corps Brigade (ICCB) was a camel-mounted infantry brigade that the British Empire raised in December 1916 during the First World War for service in the Middle East. From a small beginning the unit eventually grew to a bri ...

, part of the British Imperial Egyptian Army, seeing action in the Darfur Expedition. In 1917 he was awarded the

Order of the Nile The Order of the Nile (''Kiladat El Nil'') was established in 1915 and was one of the Kingdom of Egypt's principal orders until the monarchy was abolished in 1953. It was then reconstituted as the Republic of Egypt's highest state honor. Sultana ...

, Fourth Class. He served for a time under

Lawrence of Arabia Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

. In September 1920 Peake, then a captain, left the Imperial Camel Corps to report on the security situation in Transjordan. Security was found to be inadequate, and in October the same year Peake, by then promoted to lieutenant colonel, was ordered by the High Commissioner of Palestine to form two small police forces: # The Mobile Force, 100 men to guard the Palestine–

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 as of 2021, Amman is ...

road. # 50 men to support the British District Officer posted to

Al Karak Al-Karak ( ar, الكرك), is a city in Jordan known for its medieval castle, the Kerak Castle. The castle is one of the three largest castles in the region, the other two being in Syria. Al-Karak is the capital city of the Karak Governorate ...

, east of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Ban ...

. During the summers of 1921 and 1923, Peake organised the 150-man Reserve Mobile Force, which formed the nucleus of the

. This force was made up of Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Chechens and Circassians, armed with German rifles. Due to increasing regional skirmishes, the Reserve Mobile Force was increased in strength to 750 officers and men. This reorganised force thwarted

Wahhabi Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, an ...

raids in 1922 and the

Adwan Rebellion The Adwan Rebellion or the Balqa Revolt was the largest uprising against the newly established Transjordanian government, headed by Mezhar Ruslan, during its first years. The rebellion started due to a feud between the Adwan and the Bani Sakhe ...

in 1923. Peake became a major general in the army of the

Emirate of Transjordan The Emirate of Transjordan ( ar, إمارة شرق الأردن, Imārat Sharq al-Urdun, Emirate of East Jordan), officially known as the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921,

Private life

In 1937, Peake married Elspeth MacLean Ritchie, younger daughter of Norman Ritchie, of

St Boswells St Boswells ( sco, Bosels / Bosells; gd, Cille Bhoisil ) is a large village on the south side of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, about southeast of Newtown St Boswells on the A68 road. It lies within the boundaries of the historic ...

, and they had one daughter.Frederick Peake
at ThePeerage.com In 1939, he retired and was succeeded by

John Bagot Glubb Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 a ...

. To the Jordanians he became known as "Peake Pasha". In retirement, Peake settled at Hawkslee, St Boswells, Roxburghshire, his wife's home village. She died in 1967. His daughter, Julia Grace Peake, was born in 1941. She married firstly David Renwick Grant, and secondly the late

Sir Hugh Arbuthnot, 7th Baronet Two baronetcies with the surname Arbuthnot have been created for members of the Arbuthnot family—both in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom, and still extant. Arbuthnot baronets of Edinburgh (1823) The Arbuthnot Baronetcy of Edinburgh was cre ...

Selected publications

* * * ''A History of Jordan and its Tribes'', University of Miami Press, 1958 * ''Change at St Boswells (the story of a border village)'', John McQueen and Son, 1961 * ''Arab Command. The Biography of Lieutenant-Colonel F. G. Peake Pasha C.M.G., C.B.E.'', Hutchinson & Co., 1942

References

*James Lunt
‘Peake, Frederick Gerard (1886–1970)’
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005. Retrieved 4 June 2010

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peake, Frederick Gerard 1886 births 1970 deaths British generals Duke of Wellington's Regiment officers Egyptian military personnel Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Jordanian generals British colonial police officers British colonial army officers Pashas Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George People educated at Stubbington House School 20th-century British Army personnel Royal Flying Corps officers Military personnel from Surrey