J. K. Stanford


John Keith Stanford OBE MC was a British writer of the mid-20th century.
He was educated at Rugby School and St. John's College, Oxford. Stanford was commissioned into the Suffolk Regiment in 1915 and was attached to the Tank Corps from 1917. He ended the First World War with the rank of captain.
Appointed to the Indian Civil Service on 24 October 1919, he arrived in India on 24 December 1919. He married his second wife, Eleanor, née Davies, in 1927.
He held the following positions:
Following his time in Prome & Insein District, he played a part in the Burma Rebellion 1930–31. He was awarded an O.B.E., 1932. He retired in 1938 and then took part in Vernay-Cutting's expedition to the North-East Burma Hills.
Between 1927 and 1939 he did much ornithological work in Burma. Amongst his other publications: The Birds of Northern Burma, 1938.
In 1939, he was commissioned lieutenant in the National Defence Companies. In 1940, Stanford transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He retired in 1945 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Between the wars, Stanford was in the Indian Civil Service, for much of the time in Burma. He wrote 27 books, and was a regular contributor to The Field, Shooting Times, Ibis, the journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, and other magazines. He was, for a period, Vice-President of the British Ornithologists' Union.
Many of his books are about hunting and shooting, ornithology, and British colonial life between the world wars.
His granddaughter Melissa Stanford is the wife of William Pleydell-Bouverie, 9th Earl of Radnor.

List of works