The Quartermaster-General to the Forces (QMG) is a senior general in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

. The post has become symbolic: the Ministry of Defence organisation charts since 2011 have not used the term "Quartermaster-General to the Forces"; they simply refer to "Chief of Materiel (Land)".

History

A Quartermaster-General first appears in English Army records in 1667; as a permanently established post it dates from 1686.

Responsibilities

To begin with the

Quartermaster Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In ...

-General was (like the

Adjutant-General An adjutant general is a military chief administrative officer. France In Revolutionary France, the was a senior staff officer, effectively an assistant to a general officer. It was a special position for lieutenant-colonels and colonels in staf ...

) a senior

staff officer A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military ...

of the

Commander-in-Chief of the Forces The Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, later Commander-in-Chief, British Army, or just the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), was (intermittently) the professional head of the English Army from 1660 to 1707 (the English Army, founded in 1645, was suc ...

, responsible for the movement and quartering of troops. From the 1680s to the 1880s the QMG periodically had responsibility for

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from ...

in addition. In 1888 the Quartermaster-General took over responsibility for the transport and supply of equipment, provisions and munitions, formerly overseen by the

Commissariat and Transport Department A commissariat is a department or organization commanded by a commissary or by a corps of commissaries. In many countries, commissary is a police rank. In those countries, a commissariat is a police station commanded by a commissary. In some ...

and the

Surveyor-General of the Ordnance The Surveyor-General of the Ordnance was a subordinate of the Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Board of Ordnance, a British government body, from its constitution in 1597. Appointments to the post were made by the crown under Le ...

. From 1904 the Quartermaster-General to the Forces was the Third Military Member of the

Army Council (1904) The Army Council was the supreme administering body of the British Army from its creation in 1904 until it was reconstituted as the Army Board in 1964. History The disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War led to the consolidation of all adminis ...

and its successor the

Army Board The Army Board is the top single-service management committee of the British Army, and has always been staffed by senior politicians and soldiers. Until 1964 it was known as the Army Council. Membership of the Board The composition is as follo ...

. The appointment of a Deputy Quartermaster-General dates from 1710 and Assistant Quartermasters-General are recorded from as early as 1692.

Present day

In modern use the QMG is the senior General Officer in the army holding a logistics appointment and is currently the Lieutenant General holding the post of Chief of Materiel (Land) (CoM(L)) within

Defence Equipment and Support Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is a trading entity and joint-defence organisation within the UK Ministry of Defence. It began operating on 2 April 2007, following the merger of the MoD's Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics ...

. The CoM(L) sits upon the highest committee within the army, the Army Board.

Recent holders of the post

Holders of the post have included: *1712–1742 Major-General John Armstrong *1742–1763 Lieutenant-General Humphrey Bland *1763–1796 Lieutenant-General George Morrison *1796–1803 Lieutenant-General

Sir David Dundas General Sir David Dundas (1735 – 18 February 1820) was a British Army officer who fought in the Seven Years' War and French Revolutionary Wars, wrote important texts on the ''Principles of Military Movements'' and then served as Commander-in ...

*1803–1811 Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Brownrigg *1811–1851 General Sir James Gordon *1851–1855 Lieutenant-General Sir James Freeth *1855–1865 Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Airey *1865–1870 Lieutenant-General Sir Hope Grant *1870–1871 General Sir Frederick Haines *1871–1876 General Sir Charles Ellice *1876–1880 General Sir Daniel Lysons *1880–1882 Lieutenant-General

Sir Garnet Wolseley Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, (4 June 183325 March 1913), was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army. He became one of the most influential and admired British generals after a series of successes in Canada, W ...

*1882–1887 General Sir Arthur Herbert *1887–1890 Major-General Sir Redvers Buller *1890–1893 Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Baker *1893 General Sir Robert Biddulph *1893–1897 General Sir Evelyn Wood *1897–1898 General Sir Richard Harrison *1898–1899 General Sir George Stuart White *1899–1903 General Sir Charles Clarke *1903–1904 General Sir Ian Hamilton *1904–1905 General Sir Herbert Plumer *1905–1908 General Sir William Nicholson *1908–1912 Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Miles *1912–1919 General Sir John Cowans *1919–1923 Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke *1923–1927 Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Campbell *1927–1930 Lieutenant-General Sir Hastings Anderson *1931–1934 General Sir Felix Ready *1935–1939 General Sir Reginald May *1939–1942 General Sir Walter Venning *1942–1946 General Sir Thomas Riddell-Webster *1946–1947 General Sir Daril Watson *1947–1950 General Sir Sidney Kirkman *1950–1952 General Sir Ivor Thomas *1952–1955 General Sir Ouvry Roberts *1955–1956 Lieutenant-General Maurice Chilton *1956–1958 General Sir Nevil Brownjohn *1958–1961 General Sir Cecil Sugden *1961–1965 General Sir Gerald Lathbury *1965–1966 General Sir Charles Richardson *1966–1969 General Sir Alan Jolly *1969–1973 General Sir Anthony Read *1973–1977 General Sir William Jackson *1977–1979 General Sir Patrick Howard-Dobson *1979–1982 General Sir Richard Worsley *1982–1983 Lieutenant-General Sir Paul Travers *1983–1986 General

Sir Richard Trant General Sir Richard Brooking Trant, KCB, DL (30 March 1928 – 3 October 2007) was an officer in the British Army. He was Land Deputy Commander in the Falklands War, and served as Quartermaster-General to the Forces from 1983 to 1986. Mi ...

*1986–1988 General Sir Charles Huxtable *1988–1991 General Sir Edward Jones *1991–1994 General Sir John Learmont *1994–1996 Lieutenant General Sir William Rous *1996–1998 Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Cowan *1998–2000 Lieutenant General Sir Scott Grant *2000–2002 Major-General David Judd *2002–2006 Major-General Anthony Raper *2006–2007 Major-General Timothy Tyler *2007–2009 Lieutenant General

Dick Applegate Lieutenant General Richard Arthur David Applegate CB OBE (born 20 March 1955) is a former Quartermaster-General and Master-General of the Ordnance to the Army. He left the British Army in October 2010 and is now a Director of Eagle Strategic C ...

*2009–2012 Lieutenant General Gary Coward *2012–2016 Lieutenant General Sir Christopher Deverell *2016–2019 Lieutenant General

Paul Jaques Lieutenant General Paul William Jaques, is a senior British Army officer, who served as Chief of Materiel (Land) and Quartermaster-General to the Forces. Military career Jaques was commissioned into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Enginee ...

References

{{reflist Senior appointments of the British Army War Office War Office in World War II