Gerald Boyd (British Army officer)

Major-General Sir Gerald Farrell Boyd KCB CMG DSO DCM (19 November 1877 - 12 April 1930) was a senior British Army officer who went on to be Military Secretary.

Military career

Educated at St Paul's School,^[1] Boyd enlisted into the Devonshire Regiment in 1895 and fought in the Second Boer War before he was commissioned into the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1900.^[2] He went on to be Brigade Major for 11th Infantry Brigade in 1912.^[2]

He served in World War I with 11th Infantry Brigade as part of the British Expeditionary Force.^[2] He became a General Staff Officer with 1st Division and with 6th Division before becoming a Brigadier-General on the General Staff of 5th Army Corps in France in 1916.^[2] He was made Commander 170th Infantry Brigade in France in July 1918 and General Officer Commanding 46th (North Midland) Infantry Division in September 1918.^[2] He led the 46th Division when it successfully stormed the Hindenburg Line at Bellenglise.^[1]

After the War he was made a Brigadier General on the General Staff at General Headquarters of British Army on the Rhine and then General Officer Commanding Dublin District in Ireland in 1920.^[2] He was appointed Commandant of the Staff College, Quetta in 1923 and Military Secretary in 1927.^[2] He died of cerebral spinal fever in 1930.^[1]

Family

In 1913 he married Grace Sophia Burdett and they went on to have two sons.^[1]

References