John Edward Haselden, Lt. Col. MC & Bar #147079 U.K. 

 

John was Born at Ramleh, near Alexandria, Egypt on August 10^th, 1903 of a British father and an Italian mother. John’s father had been born in Egypt and his grandfather, who had left Liverpool at the time of the Lancashire cotton famine, occasioned by the disruption of cotton supplies from America due to the civil war, married, in 1863, Emma Saunders, a daughter of the British Consul General at Alexandria, Sir Sidney Smith Saunders. John was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, England, married his Polish/Italian wife, Nadia Ida Marie Szymonski-Lubicz, in Alexandria, Egypt and had one son Gerald born in Egypt on April 15^th, 1932. On March 2^nd 1936 Nadia died in a car accident at Beni Ahmed near Minya, Upper Egypt and in April his son Gerald was sent to live with John’s sister in England.

 

 

Before the war John worked for Anderson, Clayton & Company, the Houston-based US cotton-house, founded in 1904, and was a managing partner of their Upper-Egypt Agency at El-Minya. He spoke fluent Arabic, French and Italian. Shortly after the outbreak of war John, with the blessing of Anderson, Clayton & Company (a decision they were to regret see below) John joined the British Forces.