Obituary

SIR ARTHUR STREET

A ZEALOUS PUBLIC SERVANT

Sir Artbur Street, G.C.B., who died in London on Saturday at the age of 58, was a Civil servant of outstanding zeal and ability. He had, si'nce 1946, been deputy chairman of the National Coal Board, and was, as usual, working late on Friday night.

He was one of the men, at the head of the Government service, who helped to introduce, and make reasonable for the public, that increased measure of administrative control which has marked the middle decades of this century. The nature of his work kept him out of the public eye, but those who worked with him, whether at the Ministry of Agriculture, the Air Ministry, or the National Coal Board, were always ready with praise, for they were in a position to measure his influence on the course of Public policy.

Arthur William Street was born in 1892, tho son of the late William Charles Street, of Cowes, Isle of Wight, and was educated at Sandown County School and King's College, London. After a distinguished career in the 1914-18 war, in which he was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the M.C., he became principal private secretary to the Minister of Agriculture. He afterwards held a similar appointment to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and then in 1922 returned to the Ministry of Agriculture as a principal. Ten years later he was principal assistant secretary and from 1936 to 1938 Second Secretary.

His work at the Ministry of Agriculture has often been publicly acknowledged. They were years of great difficulty. The various marketing schemes, which were begun under the Labour Government of 1929 and developed by the National Government, came under his special surveillance and brought him into close touch with the farmers, who formed the highest opinion of his integrity and fairness. It was a tribute to him that he retained their confidence even when the marketing schemes did not bring all the blessings that some had expected.

In 1938 he was appointed Deputy UnderSecretary of State for Air. This appointment, at a time when the development of the country's air strength was of the first importance, underlined his high reputation in the Civil Service at that time. In the following vear, at the age of 47, he succeeded Sir Donald Banks as Permanent Under-Secretary of State. This onerous and exacting post-perhaps, in view of the part played in the war by the Royal Air Force and the lack of administrative tradition in the Air Ministry, it proved to be the most exacting post in the Service departments-he held for six long-drawn years of war.

His shrewdness and sagacity were of incalculable service to successive Secretaries of State, and it is no exaggeration to say that the stature of the Air Ministry in Whitehall was greatly increased under his sway. His personality was so strong and his capacity for work so phenomenal...