Peter Bawtree Gibbs was a Reserve Superintendent with the British South Africa Police Reserve in Southern Rhodesia—regarded as one of the greatest police forces of the British Empire and Commonweal...view morePeter Bawtree Gibbs was a Reserve Superintendent with the British South Africa Police Reserve in Southern Rhodesia—regarded as one of the greatest police forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
Born in London, he was educated at Aldenham, Hertfordshire and moved to Bulawayo in 1936. He served in the BSA Police Reserve in Southern Rhodesia for 21 years, retiring with the rank of reserve superintendent. The BSA Police occupied the Right of the Line during the 1893 Matabele War, the 1896 Mashona Rebellion and the Jameson Raid, the Anglo-Boer War, both World Wars, and, finally, the bitter Rhodesian bush war of the 1960s and ‘70s. The troopers and officers of this regiment, both black and white, protected the occupying Pioneer Column in civilian and military roles right up to the Force’s disbandment in 1980, when the country became the independent Zimbabwe.
Gibbs was awarded an MBE in 1964.view less