History of the Stewarts | Famous Stewarts
If you are a Stewart Society Member please login above to view all of the items in this section. If you want general information on how to research your ancestors and some helpful links - please look in background information.
If you have a specific question you can contact our archivist.
Stewart´s parents returned to India shortly after he was born, leaving him and his brother in the care of his aunts in Kirriemuir. He and his brother, George Stewart, were educated at prep school in Dalhousie Castle, and then at Trinity College, Glenalmond in Perthshire, before both boys won open exhibitions to Worcester College, Oxford University.
Stewart came from a Scots family whose fortunes were dictated by the Empire’s needs. Past generations included a ship’s captain and a forebear in Cuba, before his own father became a jute merchant in Calcutta and Madras. . After Oxford, he joined the Black Watch, and in 1944, with the 1st Battalion Tyneside Scottish, led an anti-tank platoon at the battle of Rauray, near Caen in Normandy, destroying 12 enemy panzers before a shrapnel wound forced his evacuation and a stay of nearly four months in hospital, leaving a lifelong notch, the size of a finger, in his side.
After the war, Stewart joined the Malayan Civil Service, where he became a Chinese Affairs Officer. He was awarded the highest marks awarded to any cadet in his Cantonese exams, and after an early postings as a district officer, during which he ambushed a troop of bandits at night and sentenced them, as magistrate, the following day,mhe was made Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Malacca, and then Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Penang, at the age of 32.
Following Malayan Independence in 1957, Stewart joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, where he specialised in Asia. In 1968, he became the first intelligence officer to be made Secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee, inheriting the role from Brooks Richards, and serving under Sir Dick White. In 1972, he was made head of station in Hong Kong, and political adviser to the General, responsible for intelligence operations in the Far East. In 1974, he was invited back to become one of the three most senior figures in SIS, as Director of Technical Services, and he served as the de facto deputy of his friend and mentor Sir Maurice Oldfield. Many expected Stewart to succeed Sir Maurice Oldfield as the head of MI6, but Arthur Franks was appointed to the role.
Stewart retired from MI6 in 1978 and became a director of the Rubber Growers’ Association Malaysia, based in Kuala Lumpur, where he ran a mini police force for three years. From 1981 to 1997, he was director of operations (China) for Racal Electronics, based in Hong Kong and Beijing. He published several books including an inquiry into spying (Why Spy?) and All Men’s Wisdom.
He can be seen in this portrait by Paul Benney - portrait of Brian Stewart
