Non-Australian military Birdwood connections

When we look at all the correspondence in the files of Field Marshal William Riddell Birdwood, it is obvious that he was highly respected by military personnel and civilians alike. Each letter of thanks would have preceded a letter from Birdwood of congratulations. Many others wrote to him congratulating him on his achievements including his awards, military successes and leadership of the Australian Infantry Force.  Continuing our project to seek contact with relatives of persons connected with the Birdwood collection (3DRL/3376), we are publishing three more blogs – this time of non-Australians. 

This first blog are all British men who served in the First World War. While some of the content discusses military events or matters, the general theme of the correspondence was to thank him for letters received, or to congratulate him on his achievements. If you have any further information about these people, or their descendants, the Memorial would love to talk to you. Please contact Charis May via PubandDig@awm.gov.au

Other blogs relating to Birdwood correspondence can be found here:

 

Sir George Compton Archibald Arthur, 3rd Baronet of Upper Canada

Sir George Arthur (1860-1946) served with the 2nd Life Guards then the Hertfordshire Imperial Yeomanry during the Egypt campaign in 1882, the Nile Expedition 1884-85 and then the Boer War. During the early stages of the First World War he was Personal Private Secretary to Lord Kitchener. He authored a number of books related to military history and was invested as a Fellow, Royal Society of Literature.  Arthur did not have any children to his wife Kate Harriet Brandon.  His brother Leonard died without marrying, while his sister Frederica married Alfred Edmund William Darby.

 

Captain Alexander Percy Davidson DSO

Captain Davidson (1868-1930), later Vice Admiral Davidson, wrote to Birdwood in July 1917 to thank him for him for his letter of sympathy following the sinking of HMS Cornwallis.  His son, Dudley Percy Davidson served with the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War before coming to Australia in 1923.  Dudley joined the RAAF and was working for Queensland Air Navigation when he was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1930.  His wife of 18 months was Florence Elizabeth McMillen, a nurse on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign and then on the Western Front. Captain Davidson’s daughter Rosamund Ella married Arthur Stanley Byng, 10th Viscount Torrington. Neither of Captain Davidson’s children appear to have had any children.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Michael de Robeck GCB GCMG GCVO

Sir Michael de Robeck (1862-1928) enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1878, and served on many ships around the UK, China and the Mediterranean.  Just prior to the First World War, he was Admiral of Patrols, commanding four flotillas of destroyers. De Robeck commanded the allied naval force in the Dardanelles before commanding the 3rd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet and the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet.  After the war he was made Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet then High Commissioner to Turkey. He was married to Hilda (Lady Lockhart – the widow of Sir Simon Macdonald Lockhart). They had no children.

Lieutenant Colonel Oswald Arthur Gerald Fitzgerald

Colonel Fitzgerald (1875-1916) was Lord Kitchener’s personal secretary and friend. He died with Kitchener on HMS Hampshire when it was sunk by a German mine. Unlike Kitchener, his body was recovered and buried at Ocklynge Cemetery in Eastbourne Sussex. He was the son of Colonel Sir Charles John Fitzgerald and his wife Alice. While he does not appear to have married, he had at least three siblings, Mabel, Leila and Arthur. His funeral and war grave details a sister, Mrs N G May who lived at ‘New House’ Buxted, Sussex.

General Sir Alexander John Godley GCB KCMG

Sir Alexander Godley was born at Gillingham on 4 February 1867 and was the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel William Alexander Godley, 56th Regiment and Laura Greaves Bird. During the war Godley commanded the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, II ANZAC Corps and the British XXII Corps.   He married Louisa Marion in 1898. She died in 1939 and Godley passed away March 1957. They had no children.

Major General Walter Howarth Greenly  CB CMG DSO

General Greenly (1875-1955) was a farmer from Titley, Herefordshire who commanded 2nd Cavalry Division, 19 (Queen Alexandra’s Own Royal) Hussars during the First World War. He may have also served as part of Haig’s staff. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1893 and served in the Boer War. He was the son of Edward and Sarah, and had three sisters, Lucy, Ethel and Alice, and one brother, (Lieutenant Colonel Sir) John Henry Maitland Greenly CBE.  General Greenly did not marry.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig KT GCB OM GCVO KCIE ADC

Sir Douglas Haig (1861-1928) was commander of the British Expeditionary Force from 1915 till the end of the war. He married Dorothy Maud Vivian in 1905 and together they had three daughters and one son.  Alexandra Henrietta Louisa had three children to Rear-Admiral Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnson. His other two daughters were Victoria Doris Rachel and Lady Irene Violet Freesia Janet Augustia, who married Gavin Astor.  His son George Alexander Eugene Douglas served in the Second World War with the Royal Scots Greys, and had three children to his wife Adrienne Therese Morley.

Private Harold George Jackson

Private Jackson, 13546, served with Royal Fusiliers and wrote to Birdwood in November 1917 as a patient of the 3rd Australian General Hospital.

Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes Bt GCB KCVO CMG DSO

Admiral Keyes (1872-1945) served in the Royal Navy from 1885 to 1935 and again from 1940 to 1941.  His early service took him from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions and to China during the Boxer Rebellion.  During the First World War, he was heavily involved in the Dardanelles Campaign and took charge of the operation to clear the Kephez minefield. He then commanded Dover Patrol and planned famous raids on German submarine pens in Belgium. Keyes had two sons, Geoffrey Charles Tasker and Roger George Bowlby, and three daughters, Diana Margaret, Katherine Elizabeth and Elizabeth Mary, to his wife Eva Mary Bowlby.   His son Geoffrey was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1941 during an action which took his life.

Captain Henry Franklin Chevallier Kitchener Viscount Broome

Captain Kitchener (1878-1928) was the nephew of Lord Kitchener.  He enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1893 and commanded a number of ships during the First World War including the Ajax, Raglan and the aircraft carrier Furious.  He married Adela Mary Evelyn Monins in 1916.  Their daughter Lady Kenya Eleanor (who may still be living), married Captain John Tatton-Brown. The eldest son Henry Herbert never married, while their other son Charles, married Ursula Hope Luck and they have one daughter, Emma Joy.

Admiral Sir Arthur Cavenagh Leveson

Sir Arthur Leveson was a senior officer with the Royal Navy before becoming the Rear Admiral Commanding the Australian fleet between January 1917 and September 1918. With his wife Jemima, he had a son, Arthur Edmund.  Leveson died in France in June 1929.

Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude KCB CMG DSO

Lieutenant General Maude (1864-1917) graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1883 and saw service in Egypt in 1885 and the Second Boer War. During the First World War, he commanded III Corps then 14th Brigade until he was wounded in April 1915.  By mid-August, he was commanding the 13th Division at Gallipoli and was the last man evacuated from Suvla Bay. He was made commander of Allied forces in Mesopotamia in July 1916, capturing Kut and Baghdad. While his forces were fighting in Ramadi and Tikrit, he contracted cholera and died very quickly.  He is buried in the Baghdad War Cemetery.

Maude married Cecil Cornelia Marianne St. Leger Taylour in 1893.  Together they had three children: Stella Cecile Evelyn; Beryl Mary and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Frederick Maude. His father Sir Frederick Francis Maude was an early recipient of the Victoria Cross in 1857 for actions in the Crimean War.

Captain Alexander (Alick) Muir McGrigor OBE

McGrigor was a captain in the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, Yeomanry and served as aide-de-camp to General Sir Ian Hamilton then Birdwood. His letter was written from El Arish in January 1917.  He was Hamilton’s nephew and mentions his Aunt Jean (Hamilton’s wife) in his letter. The letter also mentions that his father is “amusing himself” by typing his diary from Gallipoli.  The Memorial has a copy of this in the collection - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/3DRL/4152/.  McGrigor married Eileen Margaret Denny in 1917 and they do not appear to have had any children.  He visited Australia with his wife in December 1949. McGrigor was an only child and was living at Ryland Lodge Dunblane, Perthshire when he died in November 1963.

Admiral of the Fleet The Honourable Sir Hedworth Meux

Formerly the Honourable Hedworth Lambton (1856-1929), he served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth during the early stages of the First World War, defending cross-Channel communications and initiating life-saving patrols. In 1915 he was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet before moving to parliament in 1916.  He changed his name to Meux in 1910, and inherited an estate from Lady Valerie Meux. Also in 1910, he married Mildred Cecilia Harriet, the daughter of Henry Sturt, 1st Baron Alington, and the widow of Henry Cadogan, Viscount Chelsea.  They had no children.

Lieutenant Colonel Quinat

Lieutenant Colonel Quinat was the Commandant le 4th Groupe de Chasseurs (1st Army, 47th Division, 4th Hunters Troop).  His letter dated 19 October 1918, mentions Birdwood’s kindness to him at Villers-Boccage.  The letter is written in French.

General Sir William Eliot Peyton KCB KCVO DSO

Sir William Peyton (1866-1931) was a British soldier and veteran of the Boer War.  Prior to the First World War, he was the Delhi Herald of Arms Extraordinary. He commanded the 2nd Mounted Division at Gallipoli, before becoming Sir Douglas Haig’s military secretary in May 1916, remaining with Haig till March 1918.  From 1920 to 1922, he commanded the United Province in India, before returning to postings in the UK.  

He had one daughter, Ela Violet Ethel to his first wife Mabel Maria Gage who he married in 1889. Ela married Lieutenant Colonel Sir Edward Daymonde Stevenson KCVO in 1921.  Their only child, Anthony Ronald Guy Stevenson received a Military Cross in the Second World War.  After Mabel’s death in 1901, Peyton married Getrude, the daughter of Major General A Lempriere and the widow of Captain Stuart Robertson.  They had one son, Brigadier Guy Arthur Eliot Peyton, who died February 1958.  Guy’s only child Elizabeth, to his wife Joan Amy Sebag-Montefiore, married Thomas Sherlock Heywood Gooch with whom she had two children, Caroline and Robert.

Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer GCB GCMG GCVO GBE

Field Marshal Plumer (1857-1932) commanded V Corps in at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1916 before taking command of the Second Army in May 1915.  He later served at the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine before becoming the Governor of Malta, then the High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1925. He conducted the inauguration ceremony for the Menin Gate Memorial in 1927.

Plumer married Annie Constance Goss in 1884.  They had three daughters: Eleanor, Sybil and Marjorie; and one son, Thomas Hall Rokeby Plumer, 2nd Viscount Plumer.

Sir Henry Seymour Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson GCB GCSI GCVO KCMG

Sir Henry Rawlinson (1864-1925) was a graduate of Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.  His early military experiences include the Burma uprising in 1886, the advance of Omdurman in the Sudan in 1898 as part of General Kitchener’s staff, then as a field commander in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902.  When war broke out in 1914, he was appointed General Officer Commanding 4th Division in France. After then commanding IV Corps, he was promoted to Lieutenant General in January 1916 and assumed command of the new Forth Army. After strong involvement in the Battle of the Somme, he was promoted to General. After a short break, he again commanded the Forth Army during the Battle of Amiens, relying heavily on Australian, Canadian and American troops.  Rawlinson was married to Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour, but they had no children.  He had one sibling, Sir Alfred Rawlinson, a prisoner of the Turkish during the First World War, who was married to Margaret Greenfield, but they also do not appear to have had any children.

General Maurice-Paul-Emmanuel Sarrail

General Sarrail (1856-1925) was commander of the 3rd Army in Ardennes and Verdun.  He was dismissed from his role in 1917 after fighting in Salonika after the government suspected him of treasonable contacts with the Germans.

General Sir Andrew Skeen KCB KCIE CMG

Sir Andrew Skeen (1873-1935) was a staff officer to Birdwood during the Gallipoli campaign.  After Gallipoli, he served as Director of Military Operation at the Indian Army HQ, then Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Indian Army in 1917. He went on to further appointments in India before retiring in 1929.  He authored the book Passing it on: Fighting the Pashtun on Afghanistan's Frontier. In the preface to a current copy of this book, there is a reference to a wife and son.  It appears his wife was Margaret Jane and his son also served in the Indian Army, but a thorough search has not found any other evidence of him.

General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien GCB GCMG DSO ADC

Sir Smith-Dorrien (1858-1930) was a young officer during the Boer War before holding senior commands within the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. His letter dated 2 April 1916 mentions an impending visit to the Scilly Islands.  His brother, Thomas Algernon Smith-Dorrien-Smith was governor of the islands at the time. With his wife Olive, Smith-Dorrien had three sons. The eldest son, Grenfell, was killed during the Second World War as part of the Italian campaign in 1944. Peter, the second son, died in the King David Hotel bombing in 1946.  The surviving son, David (also known as Bromley David) died in 2001.

Phil Stockley

This is most likely Captain Philip George Stockley of the 13th East Yorkshire Regiment, who appears to be friends with Birdwood. He died 12 February 1917 and is buried at Morden (St. Laurence) Churchyard in Surrey.  He may have been related to Cynthia Stockley, an author who died in 1934 at her home in Bayswater, London.

Major Charles Lancelot Storr

Major Storr (1874-1944), later Lieutenant Colonel Storr, was very involved with the Indian Army in the years leading up to the First World War. During the war he held a number of different roles – sometimes concurrently. While attached to Kitchener’s personal staff, he was appointed to second in command of the 54th Sikhs, then Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet as well as Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence.  He retired from the army in 1921 and moved into politics. After the war he lived in Kensington with Josephine who was either his wife or sister. He passed away 7 August 1944.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton KBE CB DSO

Colonel Swinton (later Major General Swinton) was born at Bangalore, India in 1868. He attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. He began the First World War as an official war correspondent and went on to several other positions during the war. Swinton is best known as one of the men who saw the potential of tracked vehicles or tanks in the war.  He had two sons and a daughter to his wife Grace Louise Clayton, though his daughter died in a road accident during the Second World War. Swinton died in Oxford in1951.  

Admiral Sir Cecil Fiennes Thursby KCB KCMG

Sir Cecil Thursby (1861-1936) was a Royal Navy officer and later Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth. After enlisting in the navy in 1874 at the age of 12, he took part in the Niger expedition of 1882 and the Suakim expedition to the Sudan in 1884-85, and from 1901, commanded squadrons in the Mediterranean. The First World War saw him commanding squadrons in the Dardanelles including the 2nd Squadron landing of the ANZAC at Gaba Tepe. He remained in this area for most of the war.  He married Constance Ann Thursby-Pelham in 1899. They had a daughter Irene, and a son, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Nevill Thursby who was married to Christina.

Major General Cyril Mosley Wagstaff CB CMG CIE DSO

General Wagsaff (1878-1934) was best known for coining Anzac as a word. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1897, and then served with Birdwood on the North West Frontier of India. When Birdwood was putting together his team to command the Australians, Wagstaff was one of the few selected. From 1930 to 1934, he was the Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.  He married Marjorie Frances Fry in 1927 after the death of his first wife, Rosabel Thelwell. He does not appear to have had any children or siblings.

General Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet GCB GCVO GBE KCMG DSO TD

Sir Francis Wingate (1861-1953) was a British general and administrator.  He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1880 and served in India, Aden, Egypt and Sudan where he was awarded his DSO. Wingate was made Governor General of the Sudan in 1899 and served as High Commissioner to Egypt in 1917.  He had numerous appointments over his career and received many honours and awards. During the First World War, he was made an honorary colonel of the 7th Battalion in 1914, and a colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1917. Between 1916 and 1919, he also commanded the military operations in the Hedjaz.

Wingate was married to Catherine Rundle and was the uncle of Orde Wingate who led British commando units during the Second World War.  He was the father of Sir Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate, 2nd Baronet CB CMG CIE OBE (British administrator, soldier and author – married with no children), Major Malcolm Roy Wingate DSO MC (killed in action March 1918 – no children) and Victoria Alexandrina Catherine Wingate (married to Henry Dane DSO – three children).

 

 

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