The Quartermaster-General to the Forces (QMG) is a senior general in the
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 ...
. The post has become symbolic: the Ministry of Defence organisation charts since 2011 have not used the term "Quartermaster-General to the Forces"; they simply refer to "Chief of Materiel (Land)".
History
A Quartermaster-General first appears in English Army records in 1667; as a permanently established post it dates from 1686.
Responsibilities
To begin with the
Quartermaster
Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In ...
-General was (like the
Adjutant-General
An adjutant general is a military chief administrative officer.
France
In Revolutionary France, the was a senior staff officer, effectively an assistant to a general officer. It was a special position for lieutenant-colonels and colonels in staf ...
) a senior
staff officer
A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military ...
of the
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
The Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, later Commander-in-Chief, British Army, or just the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), was (intermittently) the professional head of the English Army from 1660 to 1707 (the English Army, founded in 1645, was succ ...
, responsible for the movement and quartering of troops. From the 1680s to the 1880s the QMG periodically had responsibility for
military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
in addition.
In 1888 the Quartermaster-General took over responsibility for the transport and supply of equipment, provisions and munitions, formerly overseen by the
Commissariat and Transport Department and the
Surveyor-General of the Ordnance
The Surveyor-General of the Ordnance was a subordinate of the Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Board of Ordnance, a British government body, from its constitution in 1597. Appointments to the post were made by the crown under L ...
.
From 1904 the Quartermaster-General to the Forces was the Third Military Member of the
Army Council (1904)
The Army Council was the supreme administering body of the British Army from its creation in 1904 until it was reconstituted as the Army Board in 1964.
History
The disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War led to the consolidation of all adminis ...
and its successor the
Army Board.
The appointment of a Deputy Quartermaster-General dates from 1710 and Assistant Quartermasters-General are recorded from as early as 1692.
Present day
In modern use the QMG is the senior General Officer in the army holding a logistics appointment and is currently the Lieutenant General holding the post of Chief of Materiel (Land) (CoM(L)) within
Defence Equipment and Support
Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is a trading entity and joint-defence organisation within the UK Ministry of Defence. It began operating on 2 April 2007, following the merger of the MoD's Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics ...
. The CoM(L) sits upon the highest committee within the army, the Army Board.
Recent holders of the post
Holders of the post have included:
*1712–1742 Major-General
John Armstrong
*1742–1763 Lieutenant-General
Humphrey Bland
*1763–1796 Lieutenant-General
George Morrison
*1796–1803 Lieutenant-General
Sir David Dundas
*1803–1811 Lieutenant-General
Sir Robert Brownrigg
*1811–1851 General
Sir James Gordon
*1851–1855 Lieutenant-General
Sir James Freeth
*1855–1865 Lieutenant-General
Sir Richard Airey
*1865–1870 Lieutenant-General
Sir Hope Grant
*1870–1871 General
Sir Frederick Haines
*1871–1876 General
Sir Charles Ellice
*1876–1880 General
Sir Daniel Lysons
*1880–1882 Lieutenant-General
Sir Garnet Wolseley
*1882–1887 General
Sir Arthur Herbert
*1887–1890 Major-General
Sir Redvers Buller
General (United Kingdom), General Sir Redvers Henry Buller, (7 December 1839 – 2 June 1908) was a British Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to Bri ...
*1890–1893 Lieutenant-General
Sir Thomas Baker
*1893 General
Sir Robert Biddulph
*1893–1897 General
Sir Evelyn Wood
*1897–1898 General
Sir Richard Harrison
*1898–1899 General
Sir George Stuart White
*1899–1903 General
Sir Charles Clarke
*1903–1904 General
Sir Ian Hamilton
Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, (16 January 1853 – 12 October 1947) was a British Army general who had an extensive British Imperial military career in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Hamilton was twice recommended for the Victoria Cro ...
*1904–1905 General
Sir Herbert Plumer
*1905–1908 General
Sir William Nicholson
*1908–1912 Lieutenant-General
Sir Herbert Miles
*1912–1919 General
Sir John Cowans
*1919–1923 Lieutenant-General
Sir Travers Clarke
*1923–1927 Lieutenant-General
Sir Walter Campbell
*1927–1930 Lieutenant-General
Sir Hastings Anderson
*1931–1934 General
Sir Felix Ready
*1935–1939 General
Sir Reginald May
*1939–1942 General
Sir Walter Venning
*1942–1946 General
Sir Thomas Riddell-Webster
*1946–1947 General
Sir Daril Watson
*1947–1950 General
Sir Sidney Kirkman
*1950–1952 General
Sir Ivor Thomas
*1952–1955 General
Sir Ouvry Roberts
*1955–1956 Lieutenant-General
Maurice Chilton
*1956–1958 General
Sir Nevil Brownjohn
*1958–1961 General
Sir Cecil Sugden
*1961–1965 General
Sir Gerald Lathbury
*1965–1966 General
Sir Charles Richardson
*1966–1969 General
Sir Alan Jolly
*1969–1973 General
Sir Anthony Read
*1973–1977 General
Sir William Jackson
*1977–1979 General
Sir Patrick Howard-Dobson
*1979–1982 General
Sir Richard Worsley
*1982–1983 Lieutenant-General
Sir Paul Travers
*1983–1986 General
Sir Richard Trant
*1986–1988 General
Sir Charles Huxtable
*1988–1991 General
Sir Edward Jones
*1991–1994 General
Sir John Learmont
*1994–1996 Lieutenant General
Sir William Rous
*1996–1998 Lieutenant General
Sir Samuel Cowan
*1998–2000 Lieutenant General
Sir Scott Grant
*2000–2002 Major-General
David Judd
*2002–2006 Major-General
Anthony Raper
*2006–2007 Major-General
Timothy Tyler
*2007–2009 Lieutenant General
Dick Applegate
Lieutenant General Richard Arthur David Applegate CB OBE (born 20 March 1955) is a former Quartermaster-General and Master-General of the Ordnance to the Army. He left the British Army in October 2010 and is now a Director of Eagle Strategic ...
*2009–2012 Lieutenant General
Gary Coward
Lieutenant General Sir Gary Robert Coward, (born 26 August 1955) is a retired senior British Army officer, who served as Chief of Materiél (Land) and Quartermaster-General to the Forces from September 2009 until his retirement in May 2012.
Mil ...
*2012–2016 Lieutenant General
Sir Christopher Deverell
*2016–2019 Lieutenant General
Paul Jaques
Lieutenant General Paul William Jaques, is a senior British Army officer, who served as Chief of Materiel (Land) and Quartermaster-General to the Forces.
Military career
Jaques was commissioned into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer ...
References
{{reflist
Senior appointments of the British Army
War Office
War Office in World War II