Sir Henry Hughes Wilson

British field marshal, born in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, C Ireland. He served in Burma and the Boer War, was commander of the Staff College (1910–14), entered World War 1 as director of military operations (1914), and rose to be Chief of the Imperial General Staff (1918–22). He was knighted in 1919. He left the army in 1922 and became MP for North Down, but was assassinated by two Irish ex-servicemen on the doorstep of his house in London.

Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO, (May 5, 1864 – June 22, 1922) was a British field marshal and Conservative politician.

He was born in Currygrane, Ballinalee, County Longford, Ireland and was the second son of James and Constance Wilson, of Currygrane.

He served in Burma where he received several serious wounds, including an eye wound and one which forced him to use a walking-stick for the rest of his life.

In 1897, he became Brigade Major of the 3rd Brigade at Aldershot, and from 1899 to 1901 he saw active service during the Second Boer War with the 4th (Light) Brigade before becoming assistant military secretary to Lord Roberts and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

He returned to England in 1901 and spent some time as commander of the 9th Provisional Battalion, and the rest as a staff officer. Promotion followed in 1907 when he became a Brigadier-General and commanded the Staff College at Camberley, Surrey until 1910, when he became Director of Military Operations at the British War Office.

In 1914, he surreptitiously supported British army officers who refused to lead troops against Ulster Unionists opponents of Third Irish Home Rule Bill in the Curragh Mutiny.

In September 1917, he took over the Eastern Command, which allowed him to live in London and worked closely with Prime Minister David Lloyd George. In February 1918, he was promoted to Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), effectively the head of the British army, and was the principal military adviser to Lloyd George in the last year of the First World War.

After the war, on July 3, 1919, he was promoted to British field marshal, awarded £10,000 by Parliament and made a baronet.

On June 22, 1922, two English-born members of the IRA, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan, shot and killed Sir Henry Wilson as he returned to his Eaton Square home after unveiling a war memorial in Liverpool Street Station.