Gerald Gallagher

Who was Gerald Gallagher?

Gerald Bernard Gallagher is noted as the first officer-in-charge of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, the last colonial expansion of the British Empire.

He was the son of Gerald and Edith Gallagher. The father, Gerald Hugh Gallagher, was born in Ireland about 1882 and attended the Catholic University in Dublin, becoming a doctor in 1905. From 1905–1909 Dr. Gallagher worked at Westmoreland Lock Hospital, Townsend Street, Dublin, from where he went on to serve with the British colonial medical service in West Africa for 30 years, from 1909–1939, returning again to service during WW2. He married Edith Annie Clancy on 8 August 1911 in Chelsea, London, England; they had two sons: Gerald Bernard Gallagher in 1912, and Terence Hugh Gallagher, in 1916/1917.

Gerald Bernard Gallagher attended Stonyhurst College, the University of Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School. While in college he was also active in gymnastics and rowing. After studying practical agriculture with George Butler at Maiden Hall in Bennetsbridge, County Kilkenny, Ireland he joined the Colonial Administrative Service of the UK as a civil servant in 1936.