THE SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND : New General Secretary

THE COUNCIL OF THE SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND, at its meeting on September 30, decided to appoint Captain George F. Gracey, D.S.O., to be General Secretary, in succession to Mr. L. B. Golden, whose resignation was accepted by the Council at its July meeting. Captain Gracey takes up his new duties on November 1. This appointment is one which, we believe, will be generally welcomed by friends of the Save the Children Fund. Captain Gracey brings to his new office not only the specialised knowledge gathered during his eight years of service as Overseas Delegate and as the Fund's leading expert on the Near East, but a ripe experience in social work at home and abroad.

First a missionary to the Armenians in Turkey, he played a notable part in the struggle in the Near East during the World War when, among other undertakings, he organised single handed the evacuation of 25,000 Armenians from Van in Turkey to Igdir in Russia. He was one of the four administrators appointed by the American Near East Relief after the Armenians' massacre of 1915, and he became a friend of Colonel T. E. Lawrence, ` of Arabia '.

In 1917 he was appointed Intelligence Officer attached to the British Military Commission at Tiflis. He was eventually captured by the Russians. Twice he was lined up to be shot and twice reported dead, but he was eventually exchanged for Russian prisoners of war. Later he became the first British representative to the Armenian Republic of Erivan, and when that republic was overthrown and he returned to England he took up charitable work on behalf of the Armenians and Assyrians.

It was this work which led to his first association with the Save the Children Fund, on behalf of which he has travelled widely. He is well known in the counsels of the League of Nations at Geneva, and is a popular speaker on the platform both in this country and abroad. He assisted in founding the Save the Children Fund of America, one of the youngest of the thirty-six national ` Save the Children Funds ' which exist throughout the world and are affiliated to the Save the Children International national Union, of Geneva ; and he has broadcast in the United States and Canada, as well as in this country.

Captain Gracey is an authority on Near Eastern affairs and peoples. His war service won him the MISS HALFORD'S ARTICLE on infant and nursery D.S.O. and mention in dispatches, and his other schools in Italy, which appears on another page, honours include the First Class of the Order of will be read with much interest. With her great St. Gregory the Illuminator, of Armenia.