Major-General Frederick George Beaumont-NesbittCVOCBEMC (26 March 1893 – 14 December 1971) was an officer of the British Army from 1912 until 1945. He served as a captain in the First World War, and was Director of Military Intelligence from the start of the Second World War until December 1940.
From February 1919 he served as the adjutant of a Dispersal Unit[11] (overseeing the demobilization of conscripts[12]), until on 29 May 1919 he was appointed a Staff Captain[13] in the 2nd Guards Brigade.[3] In December 1919 Beaumont-Nesbitt was awarded the Military Cross.[14]
He spent a year as an instructor in English at a French military school, before returning to his regiment in August 1921[15] to serve as adjutant until August 1922.[16][5] In November 1922 Beaumont-Nesbitt was attached to the War Office as a General Staff Officer, 3rd Grade,[17][18] and was promoted to the rank of major on 2 February 1924.[19] On 6 June 1924 he left the staff[20] only to return on 1 September 1926, as a General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade,[21] and served there until 1 September 1930.[22]
On 15 January 1941 Beaumont-Nesbitt was re-granted the temporary rank of major general,[32] to serve as a military attaché, and from
15 June 1941[33] as a member of the British Army Staff, in Washington DC.[3] Between 1943 and 1945 he was on active service in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy,[3] receiving a mention in despatches on 6 April 1944 for "gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East"[34] and also being made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1944 he was appointed an aide-de-camp to King George VI [3] serving until September 1945.[35] He ended the war as a liaison officer on the staff of Field Marshal Harold Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean.[3]
Beaumont-Nesbitt left the Army in late 1945,[3] but remained in the Reserve of Officers until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 on 24 March 1953.[36] He was appointed a Gentleman Usher to the Queen in November 1959,[37] and serving until April 1967.[38]
Major-General Beaumont-Nesbitt died on 14 December 1971.[39]
Personal life
In 1915 he married Cecilia Mary Lavinia Bingham (1893–1920), the daughter of Major-General the Honourable Sir Cecil Edward Bingham. They had two children; David Frederick John Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1916–1972) and Audrey Helen Anne Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1919–2009).[40] In 1928 he married the Honourable Ruby Hardinge (1897–1977), the daughter of Henry Charles Hardinge, 3rd Viscount Hardinge, and they had three further children; June Rose Beaumont-Nesbitt (1929–), Dermot Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1931–2016), and Brian Beaumont-Nesbitt, (1932–).[2][41]
