Major General Arthur Edmund Sandbach, (30 July 1859 – 25 June 1928) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer who served in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

and on the General Staff, eventually rising to command the 68th (2nd Welsh) and 59th (2nd North Midland) Divisions during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Early life and education

Sandbach was born on 30 July 1859, the third son of Henry Robertson Sandbach of Hafodunos Hall in

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, Flintshire to the east, Wrexham to the southeast, Powys to the south, and Gwynedd and Conwy to the west. Rhyl is the largest town, and Ruthi ...

, a wealthy Anglo-Welsh landowner. Sandbach was educated at Eton and the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of Officer (armed forces), commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers o ...

Early life and military career

Following Woolwich, Sandbach was commissioned in the

as a lieutenant on 6 April 1879. He served in the

Anglo-Egyptian War The British conquest of Egypt, also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War (), occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It ...

of 1882, seeing action at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, the 1885 Sudan campaign, the 1886–87 Burmese Expedition, and the Sikkim Expedition of 1888. He was promoted to captain on 1 April 1889, and in 1891 served as the aide-de-camp to Major General William Elles, commanding the Hazara Expedition of 1891. He attended the

Staff College, Camberley Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army and the presidency armies of British India (later merged to form the Indian Army). It had its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, founded in 1799, which ...

from 1896–97 and was promoted to major in November 1897, and during the

Nile Expedition The Nile Expedition, sometimes called the Gordon Relief Expedition (1884–1885), was a British mission to relieve Major-General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon had been sent to Sudan to help the Egyptians withdraw their garr ...

of 1898 he held the post of assistant adjutant general in the Egyptian army, where he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

and appointed a brevet lieutenant colonel. On returning from Egypt at the start of 1899, Sandbach was appointed as the military secretary to the viceroy of India, a post he held until November, when the outbreak of the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

meant that he was sent to South Africa. He worked on the staff in South Africa as assistant adjutant general, for which he was later awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a Military awards and decorations, military award of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, awarded for operational gallantry for highly successful ...

(DSO) as well as a second mention in despatches. In 1904, he returned again to India where he was appointed to command the 1st Sappers and Miners, the senior Indian engineer regiment. Accordingly, he was promoted to the brevet rank of colonel in February 1904, and the substantive rank of lieutenant colonel in April 1905. In 1907 he relinquished command of the 1st Sappers and returned to England, where he was appointed Officer Commanding Royal Engineers at Aldershot and took the (partly honorary) position as chairman of a

Territorial Force The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer component of the British Army, created in 1908 to augment British land forces without resorting to conscription. The new organisation consolidated the 19th-century Volunteer Force and yeomanry in ...

(TF) county association. In 1910, he transferred to Irish Command as its chief engineer. In this post, he was given a substantive promotion to colonel in April, following which he was placed on the

half-pay Half-pay (h.p.) was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service. Past usage United Kingdom In the E ...

list, which lasted until October, whereupon he was made a temporary brigadier general. He was also made a Companion of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...

in June of that year.

First World War

Sandbach was still holding his post at Irish Command on the outbreak of the

in August 1914. While he officially remained chief engineer in Ireland until 5 October, he was in fact appointed to accompany the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France, as the commander, Royal Engineers in II Corps. He was promoted to major general in October 1914, "for distinguished service in the field", and with the expansion of the BEF in early 1915, he was appointed as chief engineer of the Second Army, but was recalled in April 1915 to act as the temporary inspector of Royal Engineers. In November 1915, Sandbach was appointed to command the

68th (2nd Welsh) Division The 2nd Welsh Division was a 2nd Line Territorial Force division of the British Army in the First World War. The division was formed as a duplicate of the 53rd (Welsh) Division in January 1915. As the name suggests, the division recruited in Wa ...

, a second-line

(TF) formation on home defence duties in England. He handed over command in February 1916 on his transfer to the 59th (2nd North Midland) Division, another TF formation. The 59th was the "mobile division" in the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

, held in readiness to combat a landing along the East Coast; when the

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

broke out in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

on 24 April 1916, it was ordered into immediate readiness and despatched to Ireland. Here, units of the division – many with only a few weeks' training – were hastily thrown into combat, some taking heavy casualties; the 2/7th and 2/8th Sherwood Foresters lost over two hundred men killed or wounded at Mount Street on 26 April and at the South Dublin Union on 27 April. After the end of fighting in Dublin, the 59th moved to the

Curragh The Curragh ( ; ) is a flat open plain in County Kildare, Ireland. This area is well known for horse breeding and training. The Irish National Stud is on the edge of Kildare town, beside the Japanese Gardens. Pollardstown Fen, the larges ...

for further training, and was returned to England at the end of the year. In February 1917, the 59th Division was ordered to the Western Front, despite concerns that its training schedule had been disrupted by service in Ireland. It was deployed during the advance to the Hindenburg Line in March–April 1917, where it took unexpectedly high losses. Sandbach was relieved of command on 10 April, felt by his superiors to be too old for command of a front-line division. He was not given a further service appointment. He retired from the army in August 1919, by which time the war was over. Following the war, Sandbach was appointed as a justice of the peace in

Montgomeryshire Montgomeryshire ( ) was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was named after its county town, Montgomery, Powys, Montgomery, which in turn was named after ...

, where he lived, and in 1919 served as the county's High Sheriff.

Personal life

In 1902, Sandbach married the Hon. Ina Douglas-Pennant (1867–1942), a daughter of

George Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn George Sholto Gordon Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn (born Douglas; 30 September 1836 – 10 March 1907) was a British peer and landowner who played a prominent part in the Slate industry in Wales, Welsh slate industry as the owner of the Pen ...

. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 Birthday Honours as President of the Montgomeryshire Branch, British Red Cross Society, during the First World War. They had one daughter, Geraldine Pamela Violet Sandbach (1909–2001), who in 1932 married Graham Lawrie Mackeson, brother of Sir Harry Ripley Mackeson, 1st Baronet. They adopted the name and arms of Sandbach by royal license in 1933. They had three children: fraternal twins Ian (1933–2012) and Rosemary (1933–2018); and Aurial, Marchioness of Linlithgow (born 1943; third wife of 4th Marquess of Linlithgow). Politician

Antoinette Sandbach Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach (born 15 February 1969), known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a British barrister, farm manager and politician who was elected as a North Wales region Member of the Welsh Assembly at the May 2011 election, an ...

is his great-granddaughter. He died in 1928, age 68, at 57 Manchester Street, Marylebone.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandbach, Arthur 1859 births 1928 deaths British Army major generals Military personnel from Conwy County Borough Welsh justices of the peace People educated at Eton College Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich British Army generals of World War I Royal Engineers officers Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Companions of the Order of the Bath People from Montgomeryshire British Army personnel of the Anglo-Egyptian War British Army personnel of the Mahdist War British military personnel of the Sikkim expedition 19th-century British landowners Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley