Beauchamp Doran

Major-General Beauchamp John Colclough Doran (24 September 1860 – 23 November 1943) was a British Army officer who served as a junior officer in the Second Boer War and later commanded an infantry brigade and division on the Western Front during the First World War.

Early career The eldest son of General Sir John Doran and Georgina Magrath, Beauchamp Doran was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 16th Regiment of Foot in January 1880, before transferring to the 18th Foot (shortly to become the Royal Irish Regiment) later that month. He served with the 1st Battalion in the Second Anglo-Afghan War that same year, and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1881. He later participated in the 1884–85 Nile Expedition, where he was mentioned in despatches and given a brevet promotion to major in May 1887, in the Hazara Expedition of 1888, and in the Miranzai Expedition of 1891, where he acted as brigade major.

In November 1891 Doran was appointed to a staff position overseeing musketry standards in the Bengal Army, transferring to the Punjab to take up the same post in 1895. In 1897, he was mentioned in despatches for his service in staff duties with the Kohat-Kurram expedition, and again in 1898 for his work as deputy assistant adjutant-general in the Tirah Expedition, both on the North-West Frontier of India. The following year he was back in Sudan, where he was in charge of the 9th Sudanese Battalion during operations leading to the defeat of the Khalifa in the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat in November 1899 (mentioned in despatches on 25 November 1899).

Second Boer War During the Second Boer War, which began in October 1899, Doran was first posted on staff duties, as a press censor, and then made a brigade major in January 1900. He commanded the garrison at Rustenburg in early 1900, for which he was promoted in January 1901 to the local rank of lieutenant colonel while in his position, and later oversaw the remount depot at Cape Town. He first saw field service in May 1901, when he was given command of a mounted column; that November, he was severely wounded and had a horse killed under him, but continued with the column until the end of the war.

On his return, Doran married Mary MacGeough Bond, a widow; the couple would be married for thirty years before Mary's death, but with no children. In 1904, promoted to lieutenant colonel in September, he was posted to command his battalion, the 1st Royal Irish Regiment, with a brevet promotion to colonel in October 1905. He moved to staff duties in 1908, as assistant adjutant general (AAG) of Southern Command. He was promoted to colonel in March 1908 and in November of that year became an assistant quartermaster general (AQMG) of Irish Command.

He relinquished this assignment in March 1912 and was placed on half-pay. He returned to a field position in May, when he was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general and appointed as general officer commanding (GOC) of the 8th Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Division, then commanded by Major General Sir Henry Rawlinson. He took the brigade to France and commanded it through the Retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Marne and the First Battle of the Aisne. on 23 October, he was relieved of command of his brigade and sent home.

The following month, Doran was assigned to command the 68th Brigade, a group of volunteer New Army battalions in the 23rd Division. and in May was given command of the 25th Division, another New Army formation, which was then completing its training in England. Doran was relieved of command the following month, and transferred to home service as the commander of the Southern District in Ireland. Throughout the war, he had been mentioned in despatches four times. After Mary's death in 1932, he remarried an American, Florence Fairchild. He died in 1943, aged 83.