Louis Oldfield

Major-General Sir Leopold Charles Louis Oldfield KBE CB CMG DSO (February 1872 – January 1949) was General Officer Commanding Malaya Command.

Military career Educated at Clifton College, Oldfield was, after graduating from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, commissioned into the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant on 1 April 1892. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 April 1895, and to captain on 5 April 1900, serving at the time with the 32 Battery Royal Field Artillery stationed at Deesa, British India. In October 1902 he was appointed adjutant of a Volunteer battalion, the 5th Lancashire Volunteer Artillery. He became a major in October 1909.

He served in the First World War on the Western Front. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), the citation for which appeared in The London Gazette and reads as follows:

He was latterly Brigadier General Royal Artillery for 51st (Highland) Division in France. In January 1918 he was made a brevet colonel.

After the War he became Brigadier General Royal Artillery for the British Army of the Rhine moving on to be Chief Instructor in Gunnery at the Royal School of Artillery at Larkhill in 1924. and was made general officer commanding (GOC) of the Territorial Army's 47th (2nd London) Division from January 1927, taking over from Lieutenant General Sir William Thwaites.

He held this post for the next four years and after relinquishing command of the division was then placed on half-pay in January 1931, was GOC Malaya Command from later in the year; he retired in 1934.