54 Facts About Nevil Macready

Nevil Macready served in senior staff appointments in the First World War and was the last British military commander in Ireland, and served for two years as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in London.

Nevil Macready's father was 69 years old at Nevil's birth.

Nevil Macready was born in Cheltenham and was brought up in the bohemian circles frequented by his parents, and was educated at Marlborough College and Cheltenham College.

Nevil Macready later claimed that he was far too lazy to pursue an artistic career himself, and although he expressed an interest in a stage career, his father, who loathed his own profession, expressly forbade it.

Nevil Macready therefore joined the Army, passing out from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and being commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders in October 1881.

Nevil Macready joined the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders at Malta, and in 1882 went with them to Egypt, fighting at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir.

Nevil Macready stayed in Egypt, and in 1884 was appointed garrison adjutant and staff lieutenant of military police at Alexandria.

Nevil Macready remained in Alexandria until early 1889, when he returned to England to rejoin his regiment, and then served in Ceylon and India.

Nevil Macready was transferred to Dublin in 1892, and in 1894 became adjutant of the regiment's 2nd Volunteer Battalion in Aberdeenshire.

Nevil Macready saw active service in the Second Boer War, serving in the besieged garrison at Ladysmith from October 1899 to February 1900.

Nevil Macready was mentioned in despatches twice and promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1900, and in June 1901 headed a commission investigating cattle-raiding in Zululand.

Nevil Macready stayed in South Africa in a series of staff posts, including Assistant Provost Marshal at Port Elizabeth, Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General of the district west of Johannesburg, Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief Staff Officer of Cape Colony, and Assistant Quartermaster-General of Cape Colony.

Nevil Macready was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1906 and returned to Britain in October 1906.

In 1907, Nevil Macready was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General in the Directorate of Personal Services at the War Office in London, and helped to form the Territorial Force.

Nevil Macready commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot from May 1909, being promoted to brigadier-general, and in June 1910 returned to the War Office as Director of Personal Services, responsible for a variety of personnel matters.

Nevil Macready was contemptuous of politics, socialism, communism, pacifism and capitalism.

Nevil Macready was promoted major-general in October 1910, and in November he took direct command of troops deployed to deal with a possible miners' strike, in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, insisting that his troops remained subordinate both to the police and to the Home Office and not answerable to the panicking local magistrates.

In December 1915, Nevil Macready was warned by Special Branch of the impending violence and volunteer recruitment in Ireland, and from March 1916 was receiving warnings from daily police reports.

Nevil Macready advised General Maxwell not to delay, and not to be afraid of overstepping authority.

Nevil Macready was promoted lieutenant-general in June 1916.

Nevil Macready was an enthusiastic proponent of the employment of female labour to free men to go to the front.

Nevil Macready abolished the compulsory wearing of moustaches by British soldiers, and immediately shaved off his own, which he had hated.

In 1918, Nevil Macready was promoted full general and appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Nevil Macready had been mentioned in despatches four times during the war, been made a Grand Officier of the Legion d'honneur of France, and a member of the Order of the Crown of Belgium, the Order of the Crown of Italy, and the Order of the Sacred Treasures of Japan.

Nevil Macready got them back to work by granting a pay rise and promising the introduction of machinery for collective bargaining.

Nevil Macready was popular among the constables and sergeants, whom he got to know far more than his predecessors had done.

Nevil Macready abolished the system of punishment by deducting fines from men's pay over a period of months or even years.

Nevil Macready abolished the shilling a day deduction made from the pay of men on sick leave.

Only a small percentage of the men went out on strike, and they were all dismissed, although Nevil Macready wrote a good reference for every one who asked.

Nevil Macready had already written to Ian Macpherson on the latter's appointment as Chief Secretary for Ireland in January 1919: "I cannot say I envy you for I loathe the country you are going to and its people with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that which I feel against the Boche".

Nevil Macready later stated in his memoirs that only loyalty to his "old Chief" Lord French made him accept.

Nevil Macready was unimpressed by the administrative chaos in Dublin and the "crass stupidity which is so often found among police officers who have not been carefully selected".

Nevil Macready refused to take command of the Royal Irish Constabulary which reduced coordination between the police and Army.

Nevil Macready had been initially impressed by Tudor and thought he was getting rid of "incompetent idiots" from senior police positions.

However Nevil Macready told Wilson that the Army was arranging "accidents" for suspected IRA men, but not telling the politicians as he did not want them "talked and joked about after dinner by Cabinet Ministers".

Nevil Macready was worried that release of political prisoners would anger the police; hanging became a matter of credibility.

Nevil Macready rejected calls to spare the life of a young medical student, Kevin Barry, caught red-handed in the murders of several soldiers as young or younger than Barry was, in Dublin.

Nevil Macready recruited Major Ormonde Winter, an intelligence expert, as head of police detectives, to train sergeants to build networks; but it was probably too slow a decision, and too little too late to win the war.

Nevil Macready came to support martial law as he was worried that army and police discipline might otherwise collapse.

Nevil Macready advised that ad hoc reprisals by the Black and Tans were not stopping the "murders".

Nevil Macready was adamant that military jurisdiction in the Martial Law Area trumped the civil courts.

Nevil Macready backed a policy of "deterrent effects" against the IRA; houses were ordered to be destroyed, tenants evicted to remove those who shot at patrols.

Nevil Macready believed Ireland could be suppressed in the summer of 1921 with the elections out of the way, not least as troops would otherwise need to be replaced after the strain of guerrilla war.

In May 1921, Lloyd George announced a surge of manpower; but Nevil Macready was concerned about low morale, and lack of specific training.

Nevil Macready had no answer to the attacks on soft Unionist targets.

Nevil Macready was instrumental in negotiating the truce in July 1921, although he suggested, perhaps in jest, that the entire Irish Dail could be arrested whilst in session.

Nevil Macready, commander-in-chief, was in disagreement; Nevil Macready argued that escalation of violence would only unite the two factions of IRA and alienate the moderates.

Nevil Macready retired on 1 March 1923 and was created a baronet.

Nevil Macready had been sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1920.

Nevil Macready destroyed his own diaries and private papers after completing his memoirs, but 400 letters between Wilson and Nevil Macready survive, only ten of which predate his Irish appointment.

Nevil Macready briefly returned to police service during the 1926 General Strike, when he served as a staff officer to the Chief Commandant of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary.

Nevil Macready died at his home in Knightsbridge, London, in 1946, aged 83.

Nevil Macready's son, Lieutenant-General Sir Gordon Macready, was a distinguished soldier and inherited the baronetcy on his father's death.

Nevil Macready's character appears very briefly in the film Michael Collins ; he is played by Alan Stanford.