Herbert Cecil Potter

Brigadier-General Herbert Cecil Potter, (10 October 1875 – 11 June 1964) was a senior British Army officer, 'Military Chief' of Belfast and Colonel Commandant of the 3rd Indian Infantry Brigade, Peshawar. A catalogue of Potter's papers described him as a 'quintessential member of the British officer class'.

Early life Hebert Cecil Potter was born in Nagasaki in Japan on 10 October 1875, the son of Frederick Anthony Potter and Florence Bessie Marshall (née Higgins). He was educated at Bedford Modern School and Sandhurst.

Military career After Sandhurst, Potter joined the King's Liverpool Regiment as a second lieutenant on 29 February 1896, was promoted to lieutenant on 2 March 1899 and to captain on 5 December 1900. He was seconded for service in South Africa in November 1901, during the Second Boer War, and served there with a Mounted Infantry column. Staying in South Africa until after the end of the war in June 1902, he left Cape Town on the SS Orient in October that year.

He later served in Sudan (1908) and throughout World War I on the Western Front.

At the start of the war Potter was under no illusion about the task ahead, writing to his mother on 16 August 1914 that he hoped 'to come home safe and sound from the war although many will not, very many. The Germans seem to have gone mad and appear to wish to fight everyone at once'.

Potter, promoted in September 1915 to major, was again on active service in 1916, where, after being promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general in March, he succeeded Major General William Douglas Smith in command of the 9th Infantry Brigade, which he commanded during the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele.

Potter retired from the army on full pay in 1927. During World War I Potter was mentioned in despatches, decorated with the Legion of Honour by Sir Douglas Haig in November 1915, made DSO in 1917 and CMG in 1918 .

Family life In 1913 at Temple Church, Bristol, Potter married Mary Kingston (née Griffith) who predeceased him. There was one son (Cecil) and two daughters (Eileen and Joan) from the marriage.

Potter died on 11 June 1964 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.