Godfrey Lias OBE was a British author, primarily of historical works, as well as a journalist, teacher and military man.
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Career
During the first World War, Godfrey Lias was Captain and Adjutant, 11th Battalion Duke of Wellington's Regiment and Instructor at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Foreign Office News Department. Later, he was British representative on the Inter-Allied Information Committee, the official publicity organ of the Ministries of Information of the Allied Governments in London. In 1944, he joined the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office as Director of the Czechoslovak Region.
At one time, Godfrey Lias was an Assistant Master at Victoria College, Alexandria, Egypt, and then Head-master at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University) in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
He took the History Tripos at King's College, Cambridge, and in the period between WWI and WWII (i.e.: circa 1918-1939) was diplomatic correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, for which time he was awarded an OBE for political and public services.
He was Correspondent of The Times, The Economist and Christian Science Monitor in Prague, from August 1945 until he was expelled by the communists in July 1949, then in Vienna until June 1953, when he returned to England.
Personal life
During Lias's time at the Foreign Office, his daughter Angela married archeologist Ronald F. Tylecote.