Soane, Major Ely Bannister

(1881-1923)

   Major E. B. Soane was a politically controversial writer, traveler, and, from 1919 to 1921, political officer of Great Britain in northern Iraq. Although he considered Sheikh Mahmud Barzinji a rogue, Soane was deeply committed to Kurdish autonomy and eventually lost his post as a result.

   Soane replaced Major W. M. Noel, Sheikh Mahmud's supporter, as British political officer in Sulaymaniya in March 1919. After the Sheikh's first defeat in June 1919, Soane strictly administered the area but also initiated public works projects and encouraged what was then considered the novel use of written Kurdish in newspapers and the schools. When the Cairo conference in March 1921 finally decided to abandon the idea of Kurdish autonomy as part of the overall policy of maintaining British control as cheaply as possible, Soane was summarily dismissed.

   Soane was the author of To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise, 1912, and "A Short Anthology of Gurani Poetry," 1921. Following the death of Soane's widow, Lynette Lindfield-Soane, in 1994, the Soane Trust for Kurdistan was established to promote projects dealing with Kurdistan. The trust was administered by Sheri Laizer, a British/New Zealand author and friend of the Kurds, but no longer seems to be active.