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Clifford Jarrett

Jarrett, Sir Clifford George (1909–1995), civil servant

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ18527213 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Clifford George Jarrett KBE CB (10 December 1909 – 9 July 1995) was a British civil servant who held the position of Permanent Secretary in various Government departments in the 1960s.

Family and education

Jarrett was born in Dover to George Henry Jarrett, who ran a photographic business, and his wife Kate Ellen Elgar. While his father was away during the First World War, the family home in Dover was bombed and the Jarretts resided in Canterbury from 1917 to 1919.

In 1920 Jarrett won a scholarship to Dover County School for Boys (now Dover Grammar School for Boys). After winning an open scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he graduated in 1931 with a double first in the modern languages tripos.

In 1933 he married Hilda Alice Goodchild, with whom he had one son and two daughters. After Hilda's death in 1975 he married Mary Evelyn Beacock in 1978.

Career

Jarrett entered the British Civil Service

in 1932, joining the Home Office before transferring to the Admiralty two years later. He served as Private Secretary to successive Parliamentary Secretaries, Lord Stanley and Geoffrey Shakespeare, and from 1940 to 1944 was Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander.

He succeeded Sir John Lang as Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty in 1961, holding the office until the Admiralty was abolished in 1964 and its functions merged to form the Ministry of Defence.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Clifford Jarrett” as jarrett, Sir Clifford George (1909–1995), civil servant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Clifford, Jarrett and George.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1909, 1995, 1917, 1919—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1909-01-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Clifford, Jarrett and George providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Clifford Jarrett”, the useful work is to connect “jarrett, Sir Clifford George (1909–1995), civil servant” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18527213. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1995, 1917 and 1919.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Clifford Jarrett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.