Lieutenant-General Sir Sydney Turing Barlow Lawford, KCB (16 November 1865 – 15 February 1953), was a decorated British general, later to become the father of Hollywood actor

Peter Lawford Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford (né Aylen; 7 September 1923 – 24 December 1984) was an English-American actor.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'', 26 December 1984. He was a member of the "Rat Pack" and the brother-in-law of US president Jo ...

Early life

Lawford was born on 16 November 1865 at

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...

in the county of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, the son of Thomas Acland Lawford. He was educated at

Windlesham House School Windlesham House School is an independent boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 4 to 13 on the South Downs, in Pulborough, West Sussex, England. It was founded in 1837 by Charles Robert Malden and was the first boys' preparatory sc ...

from 1870 to 1878 and thereafter at Wellington College.

Military career

After receiving military training at Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he received a commission into the

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 ...

as a

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

in the 7th Battalion,

Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in continuous existence for 283 years. It was known as the 7th Regiment of Foot until the Childers Reforms of 1881. The regiment served in many war ...

on 7 February 1885 and was promoted to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

on 3 September 1894. He served in 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 ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, commanding the 19th Battalion of

mounted infantry Mounted infantry were infantry who rode horses instead of marching. Unlike cavalry, mounted infantry dismounted to fight on foot. The original dragoons were essentially mounted infantry. According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Editio ...

, and was promoted to

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

on 21 November 1900. Following the end of the war he received the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel on 22 August 1902, before he returned home on the SS ''Briton'' the following month. A brevet colonel from August 1908 onwards, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1910, he received his colonelcy in June 1912 and became the commandant of the School of Instruction for Mounted Infantry at Longmoor, taking over from Colonel Edward Ingouville-Williams. In July 1913, after enduring a period on

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 ...

, he succeeded Brigadier General

Edward Bulfin General Sir Edward Stanislaus Bulfin, (6 November 1862 − 20 August 1939) was a British Army general during the First World War, where he established a reputation as an excellent commander at the brigade, divisional and corps levels. He was mo ...

in command of the Essex Brigade, part of the East Anglian Division. Shortly after the

British entry into World War I The United Kingdom entered World War I on 4 August 1914, when King George V declared war after the expiry of an ultimatum to the German Empire. The official explanation focused on protecting Belgium as a neutral country; the main reason, ho ...

, in August 1914, Lawford was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general that same month and commanded the 22nd Infantry Brigade, part of the newly organised 7th Division, during all of its engagements on the Western Front from 1914–1915, during which time he was 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 February 1915. He briefly served as acting commander of the 7th Division from 6 to 19 April 1915 in the absence of its

general officer commanding General officer commanding (GOC) is the usual title given in the armies of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth (and some other nations, such as Ireland) to a general officer who holds a command appointment. Thus, a general might be the GOC ...

(GOC), Major General Thompson Capper, until 19 April when Major General

Hubert Gough General (United Kingdom), General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough ( ; 12 August 1870 – 18 March 1963) was a senior officer in the British Army in the First World War. A controversial figure, he was a favourite of the Commander-in-chief, Commande ...

assumed command. He again assumed command, from 14 to 19 July, when Capper once again arrived to took over, with Lawford reverting to the 22nd Brigade. He remained in this post until September when he returned to England and, promoted to the temporary rank of major general, was appointed to the command of the 41st Division. This was the most junior division of Lord Kitchener's New Armies, and Lawford would remain as its GOC from 1915 to 1919, which included brief service on the Italian front from December 1917 until March 1918.'Douglas Haig: War Diaries & Letters 1914-1918', edited by G. Sheffield & J. Bourne (Pub. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), pp. 103–104. His military nickname was 'Swanky Syd', apparently derived from his habit of donning full dress regalia, including all of his medal entitlement, regularly. He was knighted in the field. General Sir Douglas Haig, then commanding the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), noted in his personal diary in early 1915 the following assessment of Lawford, then still commanding the 22nd Brigade, as a general: "I was at Sandhurst with Lawford, ... although endowed with no great ability, he is hard fighting and plucky." After the war Lawford, whose major general's rank became permanent in January 1917, received promotion to the rank of lieutenant general in January 1923 and was posted to the

British Indian Army The Indian Army was the force of British Raj, British India, until Indian Independence Act 1947, national independence in 1947. Formed in 1895 by uniting the three Presidency armies, it was responsible for the defence of both British India and ...

in November 1920, where he commanded the Lahore District. He retired from the army in April 1926.

Death

Lawford died on 15 February 1953.

Personal life

Lawford led a somewhat complicated private life. His first marriage was on 30 September 1893, at St. Paul's Church,

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End. ...

, London, to Lillian Maud Cass, who died on 26 November 1900.''Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets'', by James Spada, 1992. His second marriage was on 20 May 1914 in London to Muriel Williams. While serving in India in the early 1920s, and while still married to Muriel, he fell in love with the wife of one of his officers, May Somerville Aylen (4 November 188323 January 1972), and she became pregnant with his child. Colonel Ernest Aylen, May's husband, upon hearing this news, divorced her over the scandal. General Lawford and Muriel divorced. He then married May Aylen, and their child, the actor

, was born in 1923, when his father was 58 years of age. The Lawfords returned to England but the scandal eventually drove the family to settle in France, and they then moved to the United States in the late 1930s.''The Peter Lawford Story'', by Patricia Seaton Lawford,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1988, pp. 13–27.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawford, Sydney Turing Barlow 1865 births 1953 deaths British Army personnel of the Second Boer War British Army generals of World War I People from Royal Tunbridge Wells Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Royal Fusiliers officers British expatriates in France British expatriates in the United States People educated at Windlesham House School People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire Military personnel from Kent British Army lieutenant generals