Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Roos-Keppel, George Olof
ROOS-KEPPEL, Sir GEORGE OLOF (1866–1921), soldier and Anglo-Indian administrator, was born in London 7 September 1866, the elder son of Gustaf Ehrenreich Roos, a Swede who had settled in England as a young man, by his wife, Elizabeth Annie, eldest daughter of George Roffey, of Twickenham. He was educated at the United Services College, Westward Ho, Devon, and afterwards at Bonn and Geneva. In 1890 he changed his name to Roos-Keppel, at the wish of his grandmother, who was the last representative of a branch of the Keppel family that had emigrated from Holland to Sweden many generations before.
After a course at Sandhurst, Roos joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers in August 1886, and served in the third Burma War (1885–1886). He was soon, however, transferred to the North-Western Frontier, where he quickly displayed his remarkable aptitude for dealing with the wild mountaineers of that region. After serving for six years as political officer in the Kurram valley he was made political agent in the Khyber in 1899, and in the following January he was gazetted C.I.E. for his successful campaign against the Para Chamkannis. From October 1903 the post of commandant of the Khyber Rifles was added to his other duties. His great influence over the border clans, particularly the Afridis, pointed him out as the natural successor of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. A. Deane, and accordingly, on the latter's death in July 1908, Lieutenant-Colonel Roos-Keppel became chief commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province and agent to the governor-general.general. At the same time he was advanced to the dignity of K.C.I.E., in recognition of the part which he had played in the recent Bazar valley campaign, which brought him also the Swedish military order of the Sword.
Roos-Keppel's service of eleven years in his new post included the period of the European War, during which his presence on the Indian frontier was of inestimable value. Skilled in all the local dialects and intimately acquainted with the customs and traditions of the border tribes, he was able to win their affection by his sympathy, while gaining their respect by the mingled patience and firmness with which he ruled them. He always had in view the permanent pacification of the province, and its material well-being; and for this reason he paid great attention to the spread of education. His popularity with the tribes enabled him to keep the frontier quiet until the spring of 1919, when war with Afghanistan became inevitable; his presence at Peshawar was then a tower of strength, and great was the regret when, in the autumn of that year, increasing ill-health forced him to relinquish his post and return to England. The government, however, was unwilling to lose the benefit of his assistance, and he was immediately appointed to the council of the secretary of state for India, where his experience and judgement gave him great weight in all political questions. His health broke down completely in August 1921, and after a trying illness he died in London on 11 December of that year. Roos-Keppel had been made a G.C.I.E. in 1917, and at the time of his death he was also a knight of grace of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. He had never married.
[The Times, 12 December 1921; Indian official publications; private information. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1916.]