Sir William John Keith, KCSI, CIE (13 April 1873 – 22 January 1937) was a British colonial administrator in Burma.
[1] He was the only man to be appointed KCSI exclusively for services in relation to Burma.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography commented that:Keith's work was marked by inexhaustible attention to detail and a readiness to interfere at the lowest levels of administration, characteristics which did not endear him to other civil servants or the expatriate commercial community.
He was known for his wordy, sometimes pompous, minutes and was easily caricatured as a humourless Scot.
Whatever the irritation suffered by his European colleagues, however, his patience and lack of grandeur made him popular with the first Burmese politicians who tasted power under diarchy.