Arthur Goschen

Major-General Arthur Alec Goschen, (6 January 1880 – 28 June 1975 ) was a British Army officer who served as an area commander during the Second World War.

Family and education Goschen was born in London, the child of Henry Goschen (1837–1932) and Augusta Eleanor Shakerley, niece of Sir Charles Shakerley, 1st Baronet. Henry Goschen was the younger brother of George Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen.

Goschen's great-grandfather was prominent publisher and printer Georg Joachim Göschen of Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony, whose third son Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Göschen (1793–1866) came to England in 1814 and the next year co-founded the merchant banking firm Frühling & Göschen, of Leipzig and London. Wilhelm Heinrich married an English woman and had several children, including George, Charles Hermann, Henry, Alexander Heun and Sir Edward Goschen.

He was educated at Eton College. His elder brother was Sir Harry Goschen, 1st Baronet. his sister Eleanor, of Ryde, saved the two children but himself drowned. Another yachtsman also drowned. He saw active service in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1901, was promoted to lieutenant on 16 February 1901 In 1911, he was serving in Cairo as Captain of J Battery, Royal Horse Artillery.

Goschen later served in the First World War as a brigade major for the Home Forces and in France, He had been promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel in January 1917.

Goschen graduated from the Staff College, Camberley in 1920. He was promoted to colonel in June 1925, with seniority dating back to January 1922. After instructing at the Senior Officer School and then serving as an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta, in India, he was appointed garrison commander and commandant at the Royal Artillery Depot at Woolwich in 1929, Brigadier Royal Artillery at Aldershot Command in June 1931. In March 1934 he was promoted to temporary major general which was soon after made substantive, and became commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. In June 1935 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. He retired in 1938 but was recalled as an Area Commander for the Chatham Area in 1939 at the start of the Second World War, before retiring again in 1941.

In retirement he became a Deputy Lieutenant for Gloucestershire.

Family In 1908 Goschen married Marjorie Mary Blacker; they had two sons and three daughters (Grania, Mary Gwendoline, and Diana Marjorie). Both their sons were in the military: Brigadier Geoffrey William Goschen (1911–1988), who married Mary, daughter of Lt. Col. Ernest Morrison-Bell; and Captain John Arthur Goschen (1918–1941), who was killed in action in the Siege of Tobruk.

Goschen died at Cirencester on 28 June 1975.