George Chrystal

Who was George Chrystal?

Sir George William Chrystal KCB was a British civil servant.

Chrystal was the son of the mathematician George Chrystal and was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at George Watson's College, the University of Edinburgh, and Balliol College, Oxford, at which he took a second in Classical Moderations in 1902 and a second in Greats in 1904. He joined the Civil Service at the Admiralty in that year, but two years later transferred to the Home Office, serving successively as assistant private secretary to Home Secretary Reginald McKenna, secretary to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and principal secretary to Permanent Secretary Sir Edward Troup. He also served as joint secretary to the Royal Commission on Mines and the Royal Commission on Metalliferous Mines and Quarries.

In 1917 he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of National Service. After the end of the First World War in 1918 he became Secretary to the Ministry of Reconstruction and of the Demobilisation Section of the War Cabinet.