Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate

Who was Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate?

Sir Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate, 2nd Baronet, CB, CMG, CIE, OBE was a British colonial administrator, soldier and author. Wingate was born in 1889 in Kensington, London, and educated at Bradfield College and Balliol College, Oxford before entering the Indian Civil Service. In the Civil Service, he served as an Assistant Commissioner in Punjab and the city magistrate of Delhi.

During the First World War, Wingate was given a special assignment with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force as an assistant political officer. After the war, he served as British Consul in Muscat, Oman, and helped to negotiate the Treaty of Seeb. He then briefly served in Kashmir before returning to Oman. After his second tour in Oman, Wingate held a variety of positions in British India, including service as the Acting Secretary of the Foreign and Political Department of the Indian Government and Commissioner of Baluchistan.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wingate served with the Ministry of Economic Warfare in Africa and Southeast Asia. Then, in 1942, he joined the London Controlling Section, an organization within the War Cabinet devoted to military deception.