Cunningham and the tribesmen (1940s)

The British governor of the Northwest-Frontier Province, Sir George Cunningham (GCIE, KCSI, KSIE, OBE), photographed by (Life’s first female staff photographer) Margaret Bourke-White. He was speaking to hundreds of Pathan tribesmen, as other government officials looked on, during the first jirga (tribal assembly) on the lawn of Khyber House, home of the political agent. Cunningham served as the governor of the province thrice, twice during the British Raj and once after the creation of Pakistan.



Sir George Cunningham (1888-1963), a Scotsman, joined the Indian Civil Service in 1911 and spent 30 of his 35 years of service in India on the Frontier. He served as assistant commissioner in the Punjab (1914-1917), political agent in Waziristan (1922-23) and councillor in Kabul (1925-26). He rose to be the PPS to the viceroy, Lord Irwin, and subsequently, was appointed first as acting governor of the NWFP (1932-1933) and then confirmed in that capacity for a nine-year long tenure from 1937 to 1946.

Cunningham had the unparalleled distinction of being asked by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to return as the province’s governor in independent Pakistan. He has been described as probably one of the greatest authorities on the NWFP and Pathans, by some British writers.