Catalogue description Frederick W Foster-Turner: Papers

Frederick W Foster-Turner, FRIBA, was appointed as an assistant architect in the Department of Public Works of the Palestine Mandatory Government in 1929. He remained there until 1945, when he was the sole acting architect, the senior architect having been seconded to Aden. During this period he was also chief architect to the Police Building Programme, and was responsible for the design and construction of approximately seventy police buildings. About this work he has written:

' This building programme was carried out to enable the Palestine police force to meet its increasingly difficult responsibility in peace-keeping between hostile factions. The drawings and photographs indicate the need for many of these buildings to be largely self-supporting with their own water supply fuel, food stores and quarters for staff and families. Some of these features were in fact put to the test in the troubled period leading to the end of the Mandate. During the 1939-45 War, the presence of these fortified positions also acted as a deterrent to incursions from Syria and Egypt.'