Edward Ingouville-Williams

Edward Charles Ingouville-Williams , CB , DSB (* 13. December 1861 in Purbrook , Hampshire ; † 22. July 1916 in Montauban , Somme ) was a British Major-General in the First World War .

Life

Edward Ingouville-Williams was born to General John William Collman Williams and Georgiana Isabella Ingouville. When Edward was six, his mother, Georgiana, only 29, died on Portsea Island , Hampshire.

Military career

Edward Charles joined the 3rd (East Kent) Regiment on foot "The Buffs" on April 23, 1881 and was promoted to lieutenant on July 1 .

He fought during the uprising in Sudan 1884–1885 as a staff officer on the Lower Nile and also served here as a special envoy in the Egyptian army. On November 1, 1892, Edward Williams achieved the rank of captain . He served from May 20, 1894 to January 21, 1898 as a regimental adjutant in the East Kenter Regiment "The Buffs".

From January 22, 1898 to April 10, 1899 he was employed as a service officer in the British Army in the Egyptian Army. Edward Williams served on the Nile Expedition of 1898 and participated in the Battle of Atbara and the Siege of Khartoum . During the Khartoum operation under Gordon Pasha , he was given command of the Army Transport Corps. His activities were mentioned in dispatches from the London Gazette on May 24th and September 30th, 1898 . On November 16, 1898, he was promoted to major . During the Nile expedition that concluded the campaign, he was with Colonel Kitchener's brigade and served as assistant adjutant general of the Kordofan Field Force.

Between 1899 and 1902 Edward Williams fought in the Second Boer War . From November 1899 to May 19, 1900 he was employed as an assistant on the staff of General Sir Charles Warren . He took part in the fighting at Ladysmith and the Battle of Spion Kop in January 1900 . In February 1900 he took part in the attacks on the heights of Tugela and also fought on Pieter Hill. From March to June 1900 he was in Natal , after which he was involved in military operations in the Orange Free State . On August 20, 1901, the troops he commanded reached the concentration camp near Klerksdorp . From May to December 1900 he led a mounted infantry contingent . Between January 1, 1901 and September 25, 1902, Edward Williams led a mobile division with which he operated in the Transvaal between May 1901 and May 1902 .

His older brother George Williams died on December 25, 1901 in the fighting for Tweefontein in the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment. After the end of the war, Edward Williams was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on October 12, 1901 and awarded the South Africa Medal and the Distinguished Service Order by the British Queen .

It was not until the end of October 1902 that he changed his name from Williams to Ingouville-Williams in memory of his mother . On April 4, 1903, he began his service in the Worcestershire Regiment, received the following year on March 3, 1904 in Bloemfontein command of the 2nd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on March 10, 1904. On October 22, 1904, his association embarked from the port of Durban for Ceylon and reached the city of Colombo on November 5, 1904 . The 2nd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment remained on Ceylon until December 1906 and was then transferred to Bombay . On October 10, 1907, the 2nd Battalion took up quarters in Ahmednagar , and in January 1908 it was relocated to Poona .

On March 10, 1908, Ingouville-Williams was promoted to colonel and returned to England. Between March 1, 1910 and June 17, 1912, Ingouville-Williams was in command of the Mounted Infantry School at Longmoor Camp. As a temporary brigadier general , he commanded the 16th Infantry Brigade from June 18, 1912 to June 2, 1915.

Ingouville-Williams and his wife Florence lived at Oakland's Stakes Hill near Cosham, Hampshire, before the war broke out.

First World War

When the First World War broke out, he led the 16th Infantry Brigade as part of the 6th Division (Major-General John Lindsay Keir ), which landed at St. Nazaire on the French coast and was commanded as a reserve on the Aisne .

Relocated to Flanders in October 1914 , the units deployed east of Armentières suffered heavy losses. In June 1915 Ingouville-Williams was promoted to major general and was given command of the newly formed 34th Division. He was nicknamed "Inky Bill" by his soldiers. After training, his troops were withdrawn into the reserve by January 1916 and expanded with two more brigades (102nd and 103rd). After the start of the British large-scale attacks on July 1, deployed in the focus of the Battle of the Somme , his division was pulled out of the main battle line by July 19 .

On July 22nd, Major General Ingouville-Williams was killed in a reconnaissance mission southwest of the Mametz forest near Montauban-de-Picardie as a result of enemy artillery fire. He was 54 years old. His grave is at Warloy-Baillon , a village about 21 kilometers northeast of Amiens .

Web links

• Biography on www. worcestershireregiment (English)