George Lindsay (British Army officer)

George Lindsay
Born	3 July 1880
Died	28 November 1956
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1900–1939 1939–1946
Rank	Major-General
Commands held	41st Bn of the Machine Gun Corps 7th (Mechanised Experimental) Infantry Brigade Presidency and Assam District in India 9th (Highland) Division
Battles/wars	Second Boer War World War I World War II
Awards	Companion of the Order of the Bath Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order

Major General George Mackintosh Lindsay, CB, CMG, CBE, DSO (3 July 1880 – 28 November 1956) was a British Army officer who played a prominent role in the development of mechanised forces during the 1920s and 1930s. Lindsay had spent much of the First World War developing doctrine for the use of machine-guns and training specialist units to operate them. After the war, commanding an armoured-car unit in Iraq, he became intrigued by the potential of mechanised warfare techniques. He was an influential figure in the debate around armoured forces during the 1920s and 1930s, working with J.F.C. Fuller on the Experimental Mechanized Force, and commanded the first experimental armoured division in 1934. Retiring just before the Second World War, Lindsay was called out of retirement to command 9th Highland Division in the first months of the war, following which he worked as a civil defence commissioner and as a representative of the Red Cross during the liberation of Europe.

Lindsay was born in 1880, the sixth son of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Gore Lindsay, the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire, and Ellen Sarah Lindsay. His paternal grandmother was the sister of the Earl of Arran, and his maternal grandfather was Charles Morgan, 1st Baron Tredegar. His siblings included Henry (b. 1857), later Colonel of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers;Lionel (b. 1861), who later succeeded his father as Chief Constable; and Walter (b. 1866), who became the High Sheriff of County Kilkenny.

Lindsay was educated at Sandroyd School and Radley College, and in 1898 was commissioned into the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, a militia unit, in which his brother Henry was already an officer. In January 1900 he was commissioned as a Second lieutenant into the Rifle Brigade, a regular infantry regiment, and served with them in the Second Boer War. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 22 February 1901, and mentioned in despatches (including 25 April 1902 "for able and fearless leading in Ermelo district on 26th January 1902"). Following the end of hostilities, he was appointed the adjutant of the Customs and Docks Rifle Volunteers (the 15th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers) in 1906. When the reserve forces were reorganised into the Territorial Force in 1908, he became adjutant of the successor battalion, the 17th London Regiment (Poplar and Stepney Rifles), remaining with the battalion until 1911. During this time, he married Constance Elizabeth Hamilton; their first child died at birth in 1910. In 1909, he also became the Army and Navy middleweight officers' boxing champion. After a short spell with his regiment in 1911-12, he was appointed to the School of Musketry as an instructor, specialising in machine-guns, and was working here at the outbreak of war in 1914.

...
Wikipedia