Ralph Alger Bagnold
| Ralph Alger Bagnold | |
|---|---|
| Born |
3 April 1896 Plymouth (Stoke-Devonport), England |
| Died | 28 May 1990 (aged 94) |
| Known for |
desert exploration, aeolian research, founding Long Range Desert Group |
| Home town | Devonport |
| Spouse(s) | Dorothy Alice Bagnold |
| Parent(s) | Col. Arthur Henry Bagnold, CB, CMG (1854-1944) and Ethel Alger (née Wills). |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 British Army
|
| Rank | Brigadier (Honorary) |
| Unit | Royal Engineers |
| Battles/wars |
World War I World War II |
Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, FRSOBE, (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was the founder and first commander of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group during World War II. He is also generally considered to have been a pioneer of desert exploration, an acclaim earned for his activities during the 1930s. These included the first recorded east-west crossing of the Libyan Desert (1932). Bagnold was also a veteran of World War I. He laid the foundations for the research on sand transport by wind in his influential book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes (first published 1941; reprinted by Dover in 2005), which is still a main reference in the field. It has, for instance, been used by NASA in studying sand dunes on Mars, and the eponymous Bagnold Dunes on that planet were named for him.
Bagnold was born in Devonport, England. His father, Colonel Arthur Henry Bagnold (1854–1943) (Royal Engineers), participated in the rescue expedition of 1884–85 to rescue General Gordon in Khartoum. His sister was the novelist and playwright Enid Bagnold, who wrote the 1935 novel National Velvet.
After Malvern College, he attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. In 1915, Ralph Bagnold followed in his father's footsteps and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers. He spent three years in the trenches in France, being Mentioned in Despatches in 1917 and receiving the Belgian Order of Leopold in 1919.
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