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Frederick Beaumont-Nesbitt
Major-General Frederick George Beaumont-Nesbitt CVO CBE MC (26 March 1893 – 14 December 1971) was an officer of the British Army from 1912 until 1945. He served as a captain in the First World War, and was Director of Military Intelligence from the start of the Second World War until December 1940. Military careerBeaumont-Nesbitt was the son of Edward Beaumont-Nesbitt, DL, and Helen Thomas.[2] He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1912.[3] He was promoted from second lieutenant to lieutenant on 5 August 1914,[4] and to captain in 1915, then serving as adjutant at the Divisional Base Depot.[3][5] From 3 November 1915[6] until 16 August 1916[7] he served as aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Richard Haking, then in command of the 11th Army Corps, finally returning to his regiment on 16 September 1916.[8] On 8 May 1917 he was seconded to the staff as a General Staff Officer, Grade 3,[9] serving with the 4th Army.[3] On 24 March 1918 he was appointed brigade major[10] of the 3rd Guards Brigade.[3] From February 1919 he served as the adjutant of a Dispersal Unit[11] (overseeing the demobilization of conscripts[12]), until on 29 May 1919 he was appointed a Staff Captain[13] in the 2nd Guards Brigade.[3] In December 1919 Beaumont-Nesbitt was awarded the Military Cross.[14] He spent a year as an instructor in English at a French military school, before returning to his regiment in August 1921[15] to serve as adjutant until August 1922.[16][5] In November 1922 Beaumont-Nesbitt was attached to the War Office as a General Staff Officer, 3rd Grade,[17][18] and was promoted to the rank of major on 2 February 1924.[19] On 6 June 1924 he left the staff[20] only to return on 1 September 1926, as a General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade,[21] and served there until 1 September 1930.[22] He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on 22 May 1932,[23] and commanded the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, until 1935.[3] On 1 February 1936 he was appointed military attaché in Paris (as a General Staff Officer, 1st Grade, or GSO1, on half-pay)[24] with the brevet rank of colonel.[25] He was promoted to colonel on 22 May 1936, with seniority backdated to 1 February.[26] He was later made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. He then attended the Imperial Defence College, where Richard O'Connor was a fellow student.[27] On 29 August 1938 Beaumont-Nesbitt was appointed the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office, and granted the temporary rank of brigadier.[28] On the day following the declaration of war, 4 September 1939, he was made an acting major-general,[29] and took over as Director of Military Intelligence after the former incumbent Henry Pownall was appointed Chief of Staff of the British Expeditionary Force. On 4 September 1940 he received the temporary rank of major-general.[30] Beaumont-Nesbitt relinquished the position of DMI on 16 December 1940.[31] On 15 January 1941 Beaumont-Nesbitt was re-granted the temporary rank of major general,[32] to serve as a military attaché, and from 15 June 1941[33] as a member of the British Army Staff, in Washington DC.[3] Between 1943 and 1945 he was on active service in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy,[3] receiving a mention in despatches on 6 April 1944 for "gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East"[34] and also being made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1944 he was appointed an aide-de-camp to King George VI [3] serving until September 1945.[35] He ended the war as a liaison officer on the staff of Field Marshal Harold Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean.[3] Beaumont-Nesbitt left the Army in late 1945,[3] but remained in the Reserve of Officers until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 on 24 March 1953.[36] He was appointed a Gentleman Usher to the Queen in November 1959,[37] and serving until April 1967.[38] Major-General Beaumont-Nesbitt died on 14 December 1971.[39] Personal lifeIn 1915 he married Cecilia Mary Lavinia Bingham (1893–1920), the daughter of Major-General the Honourable Sir Cecil Edward Bingham. They had two children; David Frederick John Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1916–1972) and Audrey Helen Anne Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1919–2009).[40] In 1928 he married the Honourable Ruby Hardinge (1897–1977), the daughter of Henry Charles Hardinge, 3rd Viscount Hardinge, and they had three further children; June Rose Beaumont-Nesbitt (1929–), Dermot Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1931–2016), and Brian Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1932–).[2][41] References
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