SIR ARTHUR DREW

Sir Arthur Drew, KCB, the last Permanent Under-Secretary of State at die War Office, 1963-64 , and chairman of the Museums and Galleries Commission, 1978 - 84 , died on October 15 aged SI. He was born on September Z 1912. ARTHUR DREW never in his life wore a military uniform yet five of the nation 's eight field-marshals alive at the time attended his farewell dinner when he retired from the civil service in 1972. This impressive array of top brass resulted from the key role he played as principal private secretary to four Secretaries of State for War — Sir James Grigg, J. J. Lawsqn, F. J. Bellenger and Emanuel Shin - well — and in the subsequent reorganisation and rationalisation of the Ministry of Defence. Arthur Drew took pride in being "never in the way, and never out of the way". He. accepted his rapid

advancement at the War Office between 1955 and 1963 modestly, and his later diminished role in the Ministry of Defence philosophically. An initiate in the War Office practice of classifying its permanent secretar - ies as Roman emperors, under names like Commodus and Vitellius, he assigned to himself the appellation "Romulus Augustulus". He had an endearing practice of rising to attention when a person less lucky in promotion entered his room. His philosophy included what he termed "Drew 's Law," to the effect that every major decision returns to its opposite in less than 30 years. In his final years in the ministry, civil servants being easiest to rationalise, he had the difficult task of answering for three or four ex-departments , with rumps of others. In case some upheaval caused a return to greater devolution in Defence, he was con - cerned to preserve knowledge of the