Hugh Norman-Walker

Sir Hugh Selby Norman-Walker (17 December 1916 – 28 August 1985) was a British colonial official.

Norman-Walker was born in London on 17 December 1916 to Colonel J N Norman-Walker, CIE of the Indian Medical Service in the Indian Army.

Norman-Walker did not spend his childhood with his parents, who served far away in India.

He was educated first in St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and then Sherborne School in Dorset.

Although living in England, he was able to pay several visits to his parents, and was familiar with the state of affairs in India.

Upon graduation from Sherborne School, Norman-Walker entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was a noted member in the athletics team.

He later graduated with a Master of Arts degree.

He served in India from 1938 to 1948.

In 1938, Norman-Walker followed in the footsteps of his parents to India and joined the Indian Civil Service.

Throughout his ten-year-long career in the Indian government, he held various posts in different departments across a wide variety of fields.

However, he left India in 1948, a year after its independence, and was briefly involved in industrial business in England.

Joining the Colonial Office in 1949, he successively served as an Administrative Officer and an Assistant Secretary in Nyasaland, and was seconded to the Cabinet Office of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953.

This did not last long as his experience as a civil servant in India allowed him to join the Colonial Administrative Service of the Colonial Office soon in 1949, of which he was posted to Nyasaland in Africa as an Administrative Officer, and was promoted an Assistant Secretary in 1953.

In August 1953, when the British colony and the two protectorates in the southern Africa, namely Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland federated to become the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Norman-Walker was temporarily seconded to the Federation's Cabinet Office to help facilitate its operation.

He returned to Nyasaland to become Development Secretary in 1954, Deputy Financial Secretary in 1960 and Secretary to the Treasury in 1961.

In 1954, he returned to Nyasaland to serve as Development Secretary in the government.

He was acting Financial Secretary for several occasions before being appointed Deputy Financial Secretary in 1960.

A year later he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and was appointed Secretary to the Treasury later in the year.

When Nyasaland gained independence and renamed Malawi in 1964, Norman-Walker remained in the government and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George.

He remained in the government until 1965 when Nyasaland gained independence as Malawi in 1964.

In 1965, Sir Hugh was posted to the Bechuanaland Protectorate as Her Majesty's Commissioner.

Norman-Walker stayed in the Malawi government until 1965 when he was appointed Her Majesty's Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate in June.

Before this appointment was made, the Protectorate had been steadily on the way to independence.

The capital city of the Protectorate was relocated from South Africa's Mafikeng to the Protectorate's Gaborone in February 1965.

A month later self-rule was granted to the Protectorate.

Norman-Walker was the last Commissioner of the Protectorate and was there to prepare for the independence, though he had very little to do in his short tenure.

Knighted in 1966, in September of the same year he witnessed the independence of the Protectorate as Botswana.

He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the New Year Honours List of 1966 and he witnessed the independence of the Republic of Botswana on 30 September 1966.

After the independence of Botswana, Norman-Walker was posted to the Seychelles in February 1967 to succeed Lord Oxford and Asquith as the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, President of both the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Seychelles and Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

However, his governorship coincided with the economic downturn of the islands.

In a move to revitalise the economy, he agreed with the plans of local politicians like (later Sir) James Mancham to promote tourism in the islands and was a staunch supporter to the construction plan of the new Seychelles International Airport.

The new airport plan was a huge project for the Seychelles at that time.

Apart from that, Norman-Walker positively supported political reform during his governorship by granting universal adult suffrage to the Legislative Council in December 1967, an important move which paved way for autonomy granted later in 1970.

In the next year, Norman-Walker was posted to the Seychelles as the Governor and Commander-in-Chief but his short tenure came to an end when he was assigned to succeed Sir Michael Gass, who was in turn appointed High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, as Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong in 1969.

He was once rumoured to be the designated candidate to succeed Sir David Trench as the Governor of Hong Kong, but the rumour soon died out when the post was taken up by Sir Murray MacLehose, a career diplomat, in 1971.

When it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1972, it became one of the most important airports in the region.

Sir Hugh was supposed to become the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man when his tenure in Hong Kong ended in 1973.

However, when it became known that his wife would not accompany him, he was forced to decline the offer.

Sir Hugh was not compensated with another post for his withdrawal.

He spent his retirement in England and was appointed chairman of the Isle of Wight County Structure Plan Panel in 1976.