Major-General Sir George Vere Kemball, KCMG, CB, DSO, R.A. (1 October 1859 – 10 January 1941) was a British Army officer of the 19th and early 20th century. He was a career officer in the British Army spending most of his career in India and Nigeria.
Early life and family
George Kemball was the son of Major-General John Shaw Kemball. He had a younger brother, Arnold Henry Grant Kemball, who commanded the 54th (Kootenay) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. His father and uncle were both generals in the British Army. His grandfather, Vero Shaw Kemball, had been the Surgeon-General for Bombay. Other ancestors served various regiments of the British Army, including the Black Watch, as well as the Indian Army. In 1889, he married Hattie Elliot.[1] With his brother, he attended Twyford before going to Harrow.[2]
Military career
Early career
After attending Twyford School and Harrow, he obtained a commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1878. After serving in the Second Afghan War (1878–1880), he was promoted to captain in 1886. In 1895, he was assigned to the staff of the Chitral Relief Force, working as the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General for Intelligence, for which he was mentioned in dispatches and be brevetted to major.[3][4] In 1898, he was promoted to major.
In 1897 Kemball took part in the Tochi Expedition along the North-West Frontier, for which he was also mentioned in dispatches, and in 1900 he first saw action in Africa, campaigning in Nigeria in the Kaduna Expedition. The following year he took command of an expedition against the Bida and Kontagora in January 1901,[5] for which he would receive the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in April 1902.[6]
After the Kano-Sokoto Expedition, Kemball, promoted to colonel in September 1904,[9] was recalled to London, where he was involved in the recruiting and selection of personnel for service in Nigeria.[10] From 1909 until 1913, he worked at the War Office and was then placed on half-pay in April.[11] In 1914, he returned to India, where he was given command of a brigade and promoted to major general.[12]
After his service in the Mesopotamian Campaign, he returned to India, where he was given command of 5th (Mhow) Division in 1917. He remained in command of the division until 1919. After his retirement, from 1927 to 1929 he served as the colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery.[15]
Kemball died in 1941, survived by his wife and children.
References
^Peter Beauclerk Dewar, Burke's landed gentry of Great Britain: together with members of the titled and non-titled contemporary establishment, (Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage & Gentry, 2001) p. 791.
