Allegiance United Kingdom Name John Foley | Service/branch British Army Rank Lieutenant-general | |
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Born 22 April 1939 (age 85) ( 1939-04-22 ) Commands held Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong Role British Army officer, born 1939 Awards Order of the Bath, Order of the British Empire, Military Cross | ||
Lieutenant General Sir John Paul Foley (born 22 April 1939) is a retired British general with a long career in military intelligence. He is the great-grandson of Henry Hodgetts-Foley, and was educated at Bradfield College.
Foley is descendant from General Thomas Gage and his wife Margaret Kemble, and it is through Kemble that he is a descendant of the Schuyler family, the Van Cortlandt family, and the Delancey family from colonial British North America.
Military career
Foley joined the Special Air Service as an enlisted man during his National Service. He served in BRIXMIS during the 1970s. He was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in 1959 rose to become Director SAS in 1983. He was later Director of General Intelligence, which involved ensuring intelligence provision in the theatre of war and making assessments for government ministers at the time of the Gulf War in 1990, and became Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong in 1992, before being named Chief of Defence Intelligence in 1994. He left that post, retiring from the Army three years later, in 1997. In 2000, he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey, and served in that post for five years before retiring to his native Herefordshire. He was appointed High Sheriff of Herefordshire and Worcestershire in 2006, and Vice-Lieutenant of Herefordshire in 2010.