Arthur George McNalty

Brigadier general Arthur George Preston McNalty (1871–1958), CMG CBE was a seasoned British Army field commander of both the Second Anglo-Boer War and the First World War. In the Second Boer War (1899-1902), he received the Queen's South Africa Medal (campaign medal) with 5 battle clasps. McNalty served thereafter with the British Army of Occupation in Egypt from 1911–1914. Arthur McNalty served, finally, from 1914-1919 during WWI in Egypt, Turkey (during the Dardanelles Campaign or Battle of Gallipoli) and France, where during he had 6 combat despatches and completed his service as a Brigadier General or Brigadier (in field command, a commander of a brigade or three battalions, that is approximately 3000 troops). In France, Arthur McNalty was severely wounded. McNalty, subsequently, acted as Director General of grave registrations and enquiries from 1919 and until his retirement from service in the British Armed Forces in 1920.^[1]

Family

Wife and children

Arthur McNalty married into the British peerage, that is to Margaret Maude de Windt, in 1905 but was divorced there from in 1921 with the couple bearing 2 peer children, who are Frances Joy St. George McNalty (b. 1907) and Peter Geoffrey Bourchier McNalty (b. 1909).^[2]

Father

Brig. Gen. Arthur George McNalty’s father, British Army brigade surgeon Lt. Col. George William McNalty, MD, LRCSI, FRCSI, CB (1837-1912) invented (1873) the “iron wire folding fracture box” or splint, which was intended for use on the battlefield and in mass casualty situations and which foreshadowed the German surgeon Friedrich Cramer’s (1847-1903) later invention of the Cramer wire ladder splint or the malleable wire ladder splint, which was developed for the same purposes and which is still used widely to this day individually or in multiple for emergency splint of fractured limbs. The Lieutenant Colonel served with the British Ambulance Service during the Franco-Prussian War and also served in the Ashanti War (1873-74), the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and the Anglo-Egyptian War (1882). He was the Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy of India. He retired from the British Army in 1892.^[3][4][5][6]

Sisters

George William McNalty’s daughter and Arthur George McNalty’s sister, Elizabeth Ann McNulty, was the wife of the Irish surgeon Andrew Sexton Gray, who is known as the “founder of ophthalmology in Australia”. An infant sister Georgina Lucy McNalty died on September 15, 1875.^[7]

See also

• List of British generals and brigadiers
• British Army officer rank insignia “Brigadier Generals wore a crossed sword and baton symbol on its own. In 1922 the rank was replaced with Colonel-Commandant, a title that reflected the role more accurately, but which many considered to be inappropriate in a British context. From 1928 the latter was replaced with the rank of Brigadier with the rank insignia used to this day.”

References