George Macaulay Kirkpatrick

Education

Kirkpatrick was born on 23 August 1866 to the politician Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick (1841–1899) and Frances June Macaulay of Kingston, Ontario. He was educated at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario and at the Haileybury and Imperial Service College in London. He returned to Ontario to attend the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston from 1882 to 1885.

Military service Kirkpatrick was commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a lieutenant on 30 June 1885. He was appointed aide-de-camp to the General Officer Commanding, Thames District in 1892, and promoted to captain on 12 December 1894. He attended the Staff College, Camberley, from 1895–1896.

He was deployed as Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (Intelligence) during the Second Boer War, He received the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel on 22 August 1902, and the substantive rank of major on 17 January 1903; and served in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General for Intelligence from September 1902. On 21 November 1904 he succeeded Charles Edward Callwell as a deputy assistant quartermaster general at the War Office. He went on to be Assistant Quartermaster General at Headquarters, India in 1906, where he was promoted in October 1906 to brevet lieutenant colonel, and Inspector General of the Military Forces of Australia in 1910. when he became Chief of the General Staff in India. to 1927. He had been promoted to lieutenant general in August 1921.

Honours Kirkpatrick was twice mentioned in despatches in 1902. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1911 Birthday Honours. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in 1917 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1918. They had three daughters, Georgina Helen (born 1898) mother of Iain Tennant. Kathleen Mary (born 1899) in Malta, and Margaret Charlotte (born 1904) in Canada.