Allegiance United Kingdom Years of service 1949–1988 Rank Major-general | Name Desmond Langley Died February 14, 2008 | |
Commands held Household Cavalry Regiment4th Guards Armoured BrigadeLondon DistrictBritish Forces Cyprus Awards Royal Victorian Order, Order of the British Empire | ||
Major General Sir Henry Desmond Allen Langley, (16 May 1930 – 14 February 2008) was a senior British Army officer who served as Major-General commanding the Household Division and General Officer Commanding London District from 1979 to 1983. He later served as the 132nd Governor of Bermuda from 1988 to 1992.
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Military career
Educated at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Langley was commissioned into the Life Guards in 1949. He was posted to Egypt and then to Libya. He then served with HQ Far East Land Forces during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation in the early 1960s. He later became Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Regiment and Silver Stick to The Queen. In 1976 he was appointed commander of 4th Guards Armoured Brigade and in 1978 he became a brigadier on the General Staff at UK Land Forces.
He became Major-General commanding the Household Division and General Officer Commanding London District in 1979 organising, inter alia, the military ceremony for the marriage of the Prince Charles and Princess Diana. His final appointment was as commander of British Forces Cyprus and Administrator of the Sovereign Base Areas in 1983 before retiring in 1988.
In retirement he was civil Governor and military Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1988 to 1992, taking particular interest in the Bermuda Regiment (now the Royal Bermuda Regiment) and hosting summit meetings in Bermuda between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President George Bush, and then between Prime Minister John Major and Bush.
Among the mourners who attended Langley's funeral at St Luke's Church in Milland on 10 March 2008 were two former commanding officers of the Bermuda Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Rance and Lieutenant Colonel David Burch, as well as two of Sir Desmond's three ADCs from the Bermuda Regiment, Major William Madeiros and Captain Larry Mussenden.
Family
In 1950 he married Felicity Oliphant; the couple had a son and a daughter.