General
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED ...
Sir John Theodosius Burnett-Stuart, (14 March 1875 – 6 October 1958) was a
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
general in the 1920s and 1930s.
Military career
Educated at
Repton School
Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, independent, day and boarding school in the English public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England.
Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school whi ...
and the
Royal Military College, Sandhurst
The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...
, John Burnett-Stuart was
commissioned into the
Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own)
The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle ...
as a
second-lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until 19 ...
on 6 March 1895.
[Sir John Theodosius Burnett-Stuart]
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives He was promoted to
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
on 26 July 1897, and saw service on the
North-West Frontier of India between 1897 and 1898.
[ He also served in the ]Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...
in South Africa between 1899 and 1902, during which he was promoted to captain on 20 February 1901, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, ty ...
in 1900.[ Following the end of the war in June 1902, Burnett-Stuart returned to the United Kingdom on the SS ''Orotava'' which arrived at Southampton in early September.
He served in the ]First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as a General Staff Officer in the British Expeditionary Force rising to become Deputy Adjutant General at General Headquarters for the British Armies in France in 1917.[
After the War, in 1919, he was appointed General Officer Commanding Madras District in India where he was involved in the suppression of the Moplah Rebellion at ]Malabar
Malabar may refer to the following:
People
* Malabars, people originating from the Malabar region of India
* Malbars or Malabars, people of Tamil origin in Réunion
Places
* Malabar Coast, or Malabar, a region of the southwestern shoreline o ...
between 1921 and 1922.[ The riots that he quashed were inspired by 10,000 guerrillas and led to 2,300 ]execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
s.
He returned to the United Kingdom and became Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at the War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
in 1923 and then General Officer Commanding 3rd Division in 1926.[ In 1927 he directed exercises by an experimental ]Mechanised force
Armoured warfare or armored warfare (mechanized forces, armoured forces or armored forces) (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences), is the use of armoured fighting vehicle, armo ...
on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
.[ He was appointed General Officer Commanding the ]British Troops in Egypt
British Troops in Egypt was a command of the British Army.
History
A British Army commander was appointed in the late 19th century after the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882. The British Army remained in Egypt throughout the First World War and, after t ...
in 1931 and General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Command in 1934: he retired in 1938.[
He was also ]Aide-de-Camp General Aide-de-camp general is a senior honorary appointment for generals in the British Army. The recipient is appointed as an aide-de-camp general to the head of state, currently King Charles III. They are entitled to the post-nominals "ADC (Gen.)".
T ...
to King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
from 1935 to 1938 and Colonel Commandant of 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade from 1936 to 1945.[ He commanded the 1st Aberdeen Battalion of the ]Home Guard
Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense.
The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting w ...
[MacKenzie, S.P. (1995), ''The Home Guard: A Military and Political History''. Oxford University Press. (p. 183)] and was Deputy Lieutenant for Aberdeenshire.[
]
Further reading
*''To Change an Army: General Sir John Burnett-Stuart and British Armoured Doctrine, 1927–38'' By Harold R Winton, Elsevier, 1988,
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burnett-Stuart, John
1875 births
1958 deaths
Military personnel from Gloucestershire
British Army generals of World War I
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
Rifle Brigade officers
Deputy Lieutenants of Aberdeenshire
People educated at Repton School
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British Home Guard officers
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
British Army generals