British Army officer
Major-General Sir Cecil Lothian Nicholson KCB CMG (1 November 1865 – 3 March 1933) was a British Army officer.
Military career
Born in Kensington,[2] London, the son of Sir Lothian Nicholson, a former Governor of Gibraltar, and Mary Romilly, Nicholson was commissioned into the Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment on 29 August 1885.[3] He was promoted to lieutenant in February 1893.[4]
He became commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment in November 1914 and commanded his battalion at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 where he was wounded.[5] He was promoted to brevet colonel in June 1915.[6] Two months after being promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general, in June 1915,[7] he went on to succeed Edward Ingouville-Williams in command of the 16th Infantry Brigade, and led the brigade at Hooge in August. He then became general officer commanding (GOC) 34th Division, again taking over from Ingouville-Williams, who had been killed, commanding it at the Battle of the Somme in the autumn of 1916, the Battle of Arras in April 1917 and the Battle of the Lys in April 1918 as well as subsequent battles on the Western Front.[5] He was promoted to major general in June 1918.[8]
He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1916 Birthday Honours[9] and a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1918 New Year Honours.[10] He was then advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1919 Birthday Honours.[11]
He went on to become GOC the Eastern Division of the British Army of the Rhine in March 1919 and then GOC 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division in April 1921 before retiring in April 1925.[12]
References
