Percy Radcliffe (British Army officer)

General Sir Percy Pollexfen de Blaquiere Radcliffe KCB KCMG DSO (9 February 1874 – 9 February 1934) was a British Army officer who reached high office in the 1930s.

Sir Percy Radcliffe
Born9 February 1874
Died9 February 1934 (aged 60)
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1893–1934
RankGeneral
Commands held48th (South Midland) Division
4th Division
Scottish Command
Southern Command
Battles/warsSecond Boer War
World War I
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Distinguished Service Order

Early life

Radcliffe was born on 9 February 1874. His parents were W. Pollexfen Radcliffe and Isabel de Blaquiere. He was educated at Winchester College and the Royal Military Academy.[1]

Military career
Officers of the Canadian Corps being presented to H.M. The King, August 1916. Brigadier-General Percy Radcliffe is stood tenth on the left.

Percy Radcliffe was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1893.[2] He saw service with 'G' Battery, Royal Horse Artillery in the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1900,[2] and was mentioned in dispatches, and was promoted to captain in 1900 and then to major in 1910.[1] He saw active service during World War I on the Western Front,[2] and was made lieutenant colonel in 1916 and a brevet colonel the following year.[1] He was mentioned in dispatches six times during World War I.[1] When William Robertson was replaced as CIGS in early 1918 by Sir Henry Wilson, Radcliffe was appointed Director of Military Operations at the War Office. He replaced Major-General Frederick Maurice.[3] Radcliffe continued as DMO from 1918 until 1922.[2] He was appointed General Officer Commanding 48th (South Midland) Division in 1923, General Officer Commanding 4th Division in 1926 and General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Scottish Command in 1930.[4] His final appointment was as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Command from 1933 until his death, when he fell from a horse and had a heart attack, on his sixtieth birthday, in 1934.[5][1]

He was Aide-de-Camp General to King George V from 1 October 1933 until his death.[6]

Personal life

Radcliffe married twice - first to Rahmeh Theodora Swinburne in 1918 and then to Florence Alice Coromandel Tagg in 1932. From 1905 to 1934 Radcliffe owned a house in Menton in the south of France. The garden, which he landscaped and curated, is now Menton's botanical garden. It is named the Jardin botanique Val Rahmeh after his first wife.[7]

Works
  • Tactical Employment of Field Artillery (which he translated from the French).
  • Report on the Franco-British Mission to Poland, July, August 1920.

References
  1. "Gen. P. Radcliffe Dies in England". New York Times. 10 February 1934. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
  2. "Radcliffe, Percy". Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  3. War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol 2, p1782, Odhams Press Ltd. 1936
  4. Army Commands Archived 2015-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
  5. National Library of Australia
  6. "No. 33983". The London Gazette. 3 October 1933. p. 6355.
  7. "The history of the Garden". Jardin botanique Val Rahmeh-Menton. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
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