Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski

Prime Minister of the Second Republic

9 June 1885 Gąbin, Congress Poland

31 August 1962 (aged 77) London, United Kingdom

15 May 1936 – 30 September 1939

Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski (Polish pronunciation:  ; 9 June 1885, Gąbin – 31 August 1962 London) was a Polish physician, general, freemason and politician who served as Minister of Internal Affairs and as the 28th Prime Minister of Poland before and at the Outbreak of World War II. Składkowski studied medicine at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, graduating in 1911. He then worked as a physician in Sosnowiec. He fought in the Polish Legions in World War I and later in the Polish–Soviet War. In 1924, as a brigadier general, he was appointed head of the Polish military health service by Józef Piłsudski. After the May Coup of 1926, Składkowski served as Minister of the Interior, a post he held (with one short break) until June 1931. After that, he was appointed Deputy Minister of War. On 13 May 1936 Składkowski became Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. He was Poland's longest serving prime minister in the inter-war years, his cabinet lasting for 3 years and 4 months, until 30 September 1939. He was also the first Polish Protestant (a convert from Roman Catholicism to Calvinism) to hold that position. While serving as prime minister, he was appalled by the lack of sanitation in many of Poland's villages, and issued a decree that every household in Poland must have a latrine in working order. This prompted many village-dwellers to erect wooden sheds in their backyards for this purpose, which have been subsequently dubbed "slawojkis". After the German Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, he fled to Romania and was interned there. In 1940 he went to Turkey and thence to Palestine. In 1947, he went to London, where he died in 1962. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.