Edwin Henry de Vere Atkinson

Edwin Henry de Vere Atkinson was the son of an Indian civil servant, E F T Atkinson. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers on 16 September 1885 and appointed to the Public Works Department in India, later serving in Burma and on the North West Frontier. He returned to England in 1895 as Instructor at Woolwich. Faced with having to teach geometrical drawing, he decided to master the subject by writing a book on it. This was soon adopted as a course text.

In 1901 he was appointed Principal of the Thomason Engineering College at Rurki, India. He was recalled from this post in the summer of 1915 and appointed Commander Royal Engineers, 38th (Welsh) Division, in September. He accompanied 38th Division to France in December, but was promoted Chief Engineer I Corps before the division entered the Somme fighting.

He remained with I Corps until November 1917, when he was promoted Chief Engineer, First Army, a position he retained until the end of the war. This was an auspicious appointment. Both his predecessors at First Army, Major-General S R Rice and Major-General G M Heath, had gone on to become Engineer-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. Atkinson had evidently been recognised as one of the leading Sapper officers in France. He certainly impressed his Army commander, Lord Horne, who described him as ‘far above average in ability, judgement and common sense, with professional knowledge of a high order [and] a vast store of energy: for him difficulties exist only to be overcome successfully’.

On the Western Front these were essential virtues in engineer officers, who were expected to bring solutions rather than problems to field commanders. Atkinson was knighted in 1921 when he became Engineer-in-Chief, India. He retired in 1930 with the rank of lieutenant-general. Sir Ronald Charles, an astute judge, considered him to be one of the outstanding RE officers of his generation.