Years of service 1905 - 1940 Rank Lieutenant-general Name Douglas Brownrigg Allegiance United Kingdom | Died February 7, 1946 | |
Commands held 159th (Welsh Border) Infantry Brigade51st (Highland) Division Battles/wars World War IWorld War II Awards Order of the Bath, Distinguished Service Order | ||
Lieutenant General Sir Wellesley Douglas Studholme Brownrigg KCB DSO (21 April 1886 – 7 February 1946) was a senior British Army officer who became Military Secretary.
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Military career
Brownrigg was commissioned into the 1st Bn Sherwood Foresters in 1905. He became Adjutant of his Regiment in 1910.
He served in World War I in the 13th Division and fought at Gallipoli in 1915 and then in Mesopotamia during the remaining years of the War.
After the War he became Deputy Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office and then became a General Staff Officer at the Royal Military College Sandhurst. He returned to the War Office as a General Service Officer in 1923 and became Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General for the Shanghai Defence Force in China in 1927. He was placed in charge of Administration for the North China Command in 1928. He was appointed Commander of 159th (Welsh Border) Infantry Brigade in 1933 and General Officer Commanding 51st (Highland) Division in 1935.
He became Military Secretary in 1938 and Director General of the Territorial Army in 1939.
He took part in World War II as Adjutant-General of the British Expeditionary Force in 1939 and retired in 1940. He was a Sector and Zone Commander for the Home Guard for the rest of the War. In late 1942, Brownrigg was employed as the military advisor for the British film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The film was about an officer called Major-General Wynne-Candy, whose fictional career was rather similar to Brownrigg's, as he had served with distinction in the First World War, was retired after Dunkirk and then had taken a senior role in the Home Guard.
Family
In 1919 he married Mona Jeffreys. Sir Douglas Brownrigg and Lady Brownrigg were keen dog breeders who imported two of the first Shih Tzus into the United Kingdom from China. His memoires; Unexpected (a book of memories), were published in 1942.