20th Century Portraits Catalogue

Born in Kent; attended Eastman’s naval academy at Portsmouth and passed out as a midshipman in Dartmouth in 1868, but disliked this way of life and resigned in 1870 to join the Suffolk artillery militia; gazetted a lieutenant in 1874 and went on to follow a fairly conventional regimental career, receiving his promotion to captain in 1880 and serving in the South African War; became Commander-in-Chief, Aldershot in 1902 and was responsible for the total reform of military manoeuvres; he became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1912, was promoted field marshal in the following year and held supreme command of the British Expeditionary Force in France from 1914; he was succeeded by Sir Douglas Haig on the Western Front in 1915, after failing to break the German line at the Battle of Ypres and Loos; served as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces until the end of the war, and became Lord Lieutenant in Ireland in 1918; died from cancer of the bladder at his home of Deal Castle in May 1925.