20 Facts About Ernest Swinton

Ernest Swinton was a war correspondent and author of several short stories on military themes.

Ernest Swinton is credited, along with fellow officer Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Dally Jones, with having initiated the use of the word "tank" as a code-name for the first British, tracked, armoured fighting vehicles.

Ernest Swinton's father was a judge with the Madras Civil Service.

The family returned to England in 1874, and Swinton was educated at University College School, Rugby School, Cheltenham College, Blackheath Proprietary School, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

Ernest Swinton was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers on 17 February 1888.

Ernest Swinton served as a captain during the Second Boer War, and returned home in September 1902, two months after the end of the war.

Journalists were not allowed at the front, and Ernest Swinton's reports were censored leading to an effectively uncontroversial although even-handed reporting.

Ernest Swinton was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel in August 1914.

Ernest Swinton suggested that the machine might be useful for transport, and Swinton passed the information on to several military and political figures who he thought might be interested.

At the time, with no apparent prospect of war, the idea seemed to be a matter only of transport efficiency, and Ernest Swinton forgot about the matter.

Major Ernest Swinton was sent to France as an army war correspondent.

In July 1915, Ernest Swinton was given a prominent post in the War Office and became aware of the Landship Committee, which was entirely under the control of the Admiralty; he formed a working friendship with its secretary, Albert Gerald Stern.

Ernest Swinton was able to persuade the prime minister to call an inter-departmental conference on 28 August 1915, which ensured the army's cooperation with the Landship Committee's work and it was Ernest Swinton who drew up the specifications of the performance which the army would require.

In 1916 Ernest Swinton was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given responsibility for training the first tank units.

Ernest Swinton created the first tactical instructions for armoured warfare.

Ernest Swinton subsequently served in the Civil Aviation department at the Air Ministry.

Ernest Swinton thereafter joined Citroen in 1922 as a director.

Ernest Swinton was Chichele Professor of Military History at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1939; he was a Colonel Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps from 1934 to 1938.

Ernest Swinton married Grace Louise Clayton in 1897, and they had two sons and a daughter.

Ernest Swinton died in Oxford on 15 January 1951, aged 82.