Gerald Henry Summers

Who was Gerald Henry Summers?

Sir Gerald Henry Summers was a British army officer and colonial administrator.

Gerald Henry Summers was born on 12 October 1885. He was educated at Bradfield College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1904 he entered the army, and served with the Royal Sussex Regiment, the 93rd Burma Infantry and the 26th King George’s Own Light Cavalry.

Summers joined the Indian contingent of the King's African Rifles in Somaliland in 1912. He fought with gallantry against a Dervish force in the battle of Dul Madoba in August 1913. In 1920, in an action planned by the Governor Geoffrey Francis Archer and carried out by Lieutenant Colonel Summers, almost the whole Dervish force was destroyed. Their leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, known as the "Mad Mullah" to the British, fled to Abyssinian Somaliland, where, at the town of Imi, he died in January 1921. On 17 August 1922, Summers was appointed Governor of British Somaliland, holding office until his death on 29 November 1925.