Lieutenant-Colonel G. Hedley Basher
Royal Regiment of Canada

[Courage] it’s something you’ve got or you have not got, but often good leadership will overcome the slightest sign of weakness among men. On the other hand, of course, cowardice on the part of one man is liable to spread its evil through the whole group. You won’t hear anything about cowardice from our lads. They can take it. I’ve looked them over and I know.

(Basher, Toronto Star, 25 Oct 1939, 11)

Born in Cornwall, England on 28 December 1891, George Hedley Basher was a Toronto police officer and governor of the notorious Don Jail from 1919 to 1931. Having immigrated to Canada in 1913, he joined the 3rd Battalion (Queen’s Own Rifles) the next year and received a commission in the British Army by early 1915. He served with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in Egypt and Salonika, and with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry at the Somme. The 24-year-old major was then appointed governor of a military prison in England and by the end of the war headed all British military prisons in the field.

Continue reading →