Lieutenant General Sir Ian Jacob

Military Assistant Secretary to the WWII Cabinet and Director General of the BBC.

Lieutenant General Sir Ian Jacob and his father in law Major General Sir Francis Treherne both played a prominent part in the life of the town, but their reputations are built on what they did elsewhere.

Francis Treherne received his medical training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and went on to study surgery at Edinburgh University. He then joined the Royal Army Medical Corp and served with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and then in the Sudan Expedition.  He subsequently served with the British Forces during the South African War and then on the North West Frontier of India.

When the First World War broke out he was Deputy Director of Medical Services of the India Corps which formed the part of the British Expeditionary Forces. During the war he was appointed Director of Medical Services of the Third Army.

He was knighted in 1917 and two years later he retired with the rank of Major General and came to Woodridge with his family to live in the Red House, Cumberland Street. They became involved with the Red Cross and between the wars Sir Francis was enthusiastically engaged in training and lecturing to the Red Cross throughout Suffolk. After the Second World War he went on to teach the use of penicillin.

Major General Sir Francis Treherne

Sir Francis’s daughter Cecil married Ian Jacob in 1924.  Ian Jacob’s father was Field Marshal Sir Claude Jacob.

Ian Jacob become a professional soldier in 1918 and joined the Royal Engineers. After the Munich crisis in September 1938 he was promoted from the Canal Brigade in Egypt to be the Military Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence. This committee was by then serving as the department of the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence (who was appointed in 1936).

From the outbreak of the Second World War, Ian Jacob served as the Military Assistant Secretary to the War Cabinet and worked closely with Winston Churchill. The Prime Minister obviously trusted and respected Ian Jacob because he accompanied Churchill on his 13 wartime journeys outside Britain, these journeys included the meetings with Roosevelt and Stalin. Churchill also endorsed Ian Jabob’s promotion from Colonel to Lieutenant General.

At the end of the war Ian Jacob knew that his professional career as a solder was over, because he had not commanded troops since 1938. So he had to look for a civilian job.  The outgoing head of BBC’s European Services, which was to become the BBC World service, recommended that Ian Jacob should replace him and he was appointed in 1946 following his retirement from the Army. Shortly after he was knighted for his work with the war cabinet.

The wedding of Ian Jacob & Cecil Treherne

When the conservative party won the General election in 1951 Churchill once again become Prime Minister. He also took the office of Secretary of State for Defence and he immediately seconded Sir Ian from the BBC to become his Chief Staff Officer.

Churchill soon realized that the Defence portfolio was relatively dull during peacetime so he stepped down and appointed Field Marshal Earl Alexander as his replacement. Sir Ian was less comfortable working for Alexander than for Churchill but fortunately the post of Director General of the BBC became vacant in June 1952. Sir Ian took over in December of that year and he remained in that post until he retired at the end of 1959.

After his retirement Sir Ian was co-author of a major report on the Central Organisation of Defence, he was a county councillor and a trustee of the Imperial War Museum.  More importantly for us, he was Chairman of the Trustees of Woodbridge Museum from 1979 to 1989.

Sir Ian’s wife Cecil had returned to Woodbridge at the start of the Second World War and lived with her parents.  In 1946 Sir Ian joined her and they set up home in the Red House.  Cecil, like her parents, was very active in the Woodbridge Division of the Red Cross and she finally retired as President of it in 1974.

Lady Cecil Jacob in her Red Cross uniform.

Last Edited 18 Aug 23