Russell Gurney

Major-General Russell Gurney, (1890–1947) was a British Army officer who served in both the First World War and Second World War.

Military career Born in 1890, Russell Gurney was the son of a clergyman and was educated at Clifton College. He volunteered for the British Army during the First World War and was commissioned into the Northamptonshire Regiment in 1915, with which he saw service in France and, later, Italy. In April 1918 he was made a general staff officer, grade 2.

Gurney remained in the army during the interwar period and attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1921 to 1922.

He was married in 1928 and gave up his GSO2 appointment at the War Office in London in March 1934. In 1935, he wrote a history of his regiment, before transferring to the Suffolk Regiment and assuming command of the 1st Battalion of his new regiment in 1937. The following year he became commandant of the Small Arms School at Netheravon, Wiltshire. He held this position until 1947, the year he retired from the army, after 33 years of service. Gurney died, after a short illness, in his home in Devon, at the age of 57.