John Capper
Sir John Edward Capper | |
|---|---|
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service/ |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1880 to 1946 |
| Rank | Major-General |
| Unit | Royal Engineers |
| Commands held | 24th Division, Royal Tank Corps |
| Battles/wars | Tirah Campaign, Second Boer War, First World War |
| Awards | Knight Commander of the Bath, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, Legion d'honneur |
Major-General Sir John Edward Capper, KCB, KCVO (7 December, 1861 – 24 May, 1955) was a senior officer of the British Army during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who served on the North-West Frontier of British India, in South Africa and during the First World War was instrumental in the development of the tank.
An experienced engineer, Capper was involved in numerous building projects during his years in India and also pioneered the development of airships in Britain. He also helped establish and command several military training establishments in Britain and was involved in large-scale military planning during 1918 and 1919, helping establish the tank as a major part of the British Army. He is sometimes described as pompous and possessing poor communication skills, gaining the nickname Stone Age for his attitude towards the ideas of junior officers in the Royal Tank Corps, but he nevertheless played a vital role in the development and deployment of armoured vehicles.
India, South Africa and airships
John Capper was born in Lucknow, India to civil servant William Copeland Capper and his wife Sarah in December 1861. Returning to England at a young age for education, Capper attended Wellington College and upon leaving in 1880 joined the Royal Engineers as a junior lieutenant.[1] A capable engineering officer, Capper served in India and Burma for most of the first 17 years of his career, mainly employed on military and public construction. He performed well if unspectacularly in this task, being promoted to Captain in 1889.
In 1897, Capper was attached to the force dispatched to the Tirah Campaign on the North-West Frontier. At the campaign's successful conclusion he was promoted to Major and transferred to South Africa while his wife Edith Mary (neé Beausire) and their son John Beausire Copeland Capper returned to England. Arriving in South Africa at the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Capper became deputy assistant director of railways, a vital job given the lengthy and dangerous supply routes along which the war was fought. In 1900, he was rewarded with a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and commanded several locally raised units, eventually becoming commandant at Johannesburg and being awarded the CB.[1]
Returning to England at the war's conclusion and settling with his family at Bramdean House in Alresford,[2] Capper was attached to command the School of Ballooning at Aldershot as a full Colonel in 1906. The Balloon School was a training and test centre for army experiments with observation and operations airships and Capper performed well at the task, contributing to the development of Britain's military airships and even piloting the first successful British airship flight, that of the Nulli Secundus over London during 1907.[1][3] Leaving the post in 1910, Capper was transferred the following year to the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham which he ran until September 1914, when the lack of experienced officers forced his transfer to France in the early months of the First World War.
First World War
As a Brigadier-General, Capper was first made deputy inspector of the lines of communication before being given the post of chief engineer to the Third Corps before being promoted to Major-General and made chief engineer of the British Third Army in July. In October, following the deaths of several senior officers at the battle of Loos, including Capper's younger brother Major-General Sir Thompson Capper, he was promoted to overall command of the 24th Division.[4] Capper remained in command of the division for the next 18 months, including periods of heavy fighting at the battle of the Somme, where his son John was killed in action serving with the Royal Artillery.[5] The division also spent extensive periods of time in other sections of the line and gained extensive battle experience at the cost of high casualties. As a reward for his service in command of the division, he was presented with the Legion d'honneur by the French government.[6]
In May 1917 he was recalled to England to first run the Machine-Gun Corps training centre and then from the 28 July hold the position of Director-General of the newly formed Tank Corps at the War Office.[1] Coomand of tanks at the front was in the hands of Hugh Elles, the first commander of the Heavy Branch. Although tanks had first been introduced on the Somme the year before, their design and manufacture were both still inadequate and the tactics of their deployment almost non-existent. Capper's job at the Tank Corps was to shape the organisation of the unit into an efficient battlefield force, improve reliability and develop tactics. It was in this job that Capper received the nickname Stone Age as his subordinates considered him to be unwilling to accept new innovations in tank tactics and rooted in the cavalry warfare of the previous century.[1] In this they were wrong as Capper was an able tactician who worked with General J. F. C. Fuller to develop a plan for a large scale armoured assault on German lines in 1919 (known as Plan 1919), but their prejudices were based on Capper's rigid adherence to the military hierarchy and his consequent failure to communicate his ideas to those below his rank.[1] For his services in this capacity, Capper was made a Knight Commander of the Bath.[7]
Retirement
In July 1918 he left the War Office and commanded the 64th Division in England until the May 1919, when he took over command of Number 1. Area in France and Flanders. In September 1919, Capper became Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey and took over command of the island's military installations. He held this post of five years and during that time was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and Colonel-Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps. Retiring in 1925, Capper remained associated with the Tank Corps and also became a governor of Wellington College, positions he retained until 1946.[1]
During the Second World War Capper joined the Hampshire Home Guard and remained on duty with them until 1943. Post-War he retired fully to Bramdean House and remained there until shortly before his death. He was widowed in 1953 and died at Esperance Nursing Home in Eastbourne in May 1955, leaving a daughter.[1] In 1971 his collected papers and those of his brother Thompson, who had been an instructor at the Staff College, Camberley, were all donated to the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College London where they are still available to researchers.[8]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Sir John Edward Capper, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ Bramdean House, National Gardens Scheme, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ Royal Engineers Museum History Section - Aeronautics, Royal Engineers Museum and Library, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ Major-General Sir Thompson Capper, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ Second Lieutenant John Beausire Copeland Capper, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ The London Gazette, May 1, 1917, The London Gazette, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ The London Gazette, June 1, 1917, The London Gazette, Retrieved 11 August 2007
- ^ Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London, Retrieved 11 August 2007
References
- "Capper, Sir John Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- "Archive Search Results for John Edward Capper". The London Gazette.
- "CAPPER, Maj Gen Sir John Edward (1861-1955)". Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London.
- "Royal Engineers Museum History Section - Aeronautics". Royal Engineers Museum and Library.
- "CAPPER, Sir THOMPSON". Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
- "CAPPER, JOHN BEAUSIRE COPELAND". Commonwealth War Graves Commission.