Edgar Williams


Brigadier Sir Edgar Trevor "Bill" Williams CB CBE DSO was a British Army officer who played a significant role in the Second Battle of El Alamein in World War II. He was a Fellow of Balliol College and Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford, and Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography.

Early life

Edgar Trevor Williams was born on 20 November 1912, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at Tettenhall College, Staffordshire and then at King Edward VII School in Sheffield from 1928 to 1931. He obtained a Postmastership at Merton College, Oxford, and took a First in History in 1934. After a lectureship at Liverpool University he returned to Merton in 1937 as a junior research fellow.

World War II

Williams was Chief of Intelligence to General Montgomery in his North African Campaign against the German army under Erwin Rommel in 1942. He first encountered a vehicle of the Afrika Korps at Agheila in Tripoli, Libya in February 1941, though his report that there were now German as well as Italian forces in North Africa was initially doubted.
In his memoirs Montgomery describes how Williams pointed out a crucial weakness in the deployments of the German and Italian troops, exploited in the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein. Williams remained with Montgomery as his Intelligence Chief for the rest of the war. He was mentioned in despatches three times during the war, as well as being awarded the DSO in 1943, appointed CBE in 1944 and CB in 1946.

Later life

Williams was elected a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford in 1945. From 1949 to 1980 he was joint editor of the decennial supplements to the Dictionary of National Biography. He went on to become warden of Rhodes House in 1952, a position which he held until 1980. As secretary to the Rhodes Trustees from 1959, he was also concerned with the selection and subsequent well-being of nearly 200 Rhodes scholars per annum.
Williams worked for the United Nations Security Council Secretariat in New York from 1946 to 1947. In 1959 he was a member of the Devlin Commission on Nyasaland, and in 1980 an observer at the Rhodesian elections.
At Oxford, Williams was a member of the Hebdomadal Council, a Curator of the Chest, and latterly a Pro-Vice-Chancellor. He also served as a Radcliffe Trustee, as a member of the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, and as chairman of the Academic Advisory Board which planned Warwick University. He served for many years as senior treasurer of the Oxford University Cricket Club. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire in 1964, and was knighted in 1973.
Williams was married twice. In 1938, he married Monica Robertson; they had a daughter. In 1946, he married Gillian, younger daughter of Major-General M D Gambier-Parry; they had a son and a daughter.
A portrait of Sir Edgar Williams hangs in Rhodes House, Oxford.