Alan Richard Montagu-Stuart-Wortley

(Alan) Richard Montagu-Stuart-Wortley was the third son of the Hon. F D Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, brother of the 2nd Earl of Wharncliffe and of Major-General the Hon E J Montagu-Stuart-Wortley. He added to his aristocratic credentials by marrying the Hon Maud Julia Mary Winn, daughter of the 1st Baron Oswald, in 1900. Richard Montagu-Stuart-Wortley was commissioned in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on 5 November 1887. He was serious about his profession. He saw active service with the Chitral Relief Force (1895) and in South Africa, where he was wounded and won the DSO.

He passed Staff College in December 1903, spending the next five years in staff appointments at the War Office. On 1 April 1914 he was appointed Assistant Director of Movements at the War Office, a position he retained until 29 January 1915, when he became Director of Movements. Montagu-Stuart-Wortley’s wartime career seemed to have a clear staff rationale, but at the beginning of 1917 it took a turn for the peculiar.

On 27 February 1917 he was appointed GOC 68th Brigade, 23rd Division. He exercised this command for a little over a month, before being transferred to the temporary command of 19th Division (7 April–24 May 1917), where he immediately fell foul of the Commander-in-Chief.

‘I then visited HQ 19th Division,’ Haig recorded in his diary on 23 May 1917, ‘I did not like [Major-General Stuart-Wortley’s] arrangements. He had broken up a brigade to provide 2 battalions as “moppers up” to another brigade. In fact I felt he had barely got beyond the fringe of the problem which confronted him. He was also very nervous and fussy.’[1]

Haig replaced him next day with Cameron Shute, who recast 19th Division’s plans. Montagu-Staurt-Wortley found an equally temporary berth as GOC 32nd Division, vacated by Shute (24 May–20 June 1917). On 18 August 1917 he returned to staff duties as Deputy Quarter-Master-General, Mesopotamia, a post he retained for the rest of the war.

He was knighted in 1918. Montagu-Stuart-Wortley remained in the army after the war, retiring in 1927 with the rank of lieutenant-general after a three-year tour as Quarter-Master-General, India.

References: 

[1] Gary Sheffield & John Bourne, eds., Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), p. 295