General Sir John Edward Spencer Brind, (9 February 1878 – 14 October 1954) was a British Army officer who commanded the 4th Division.
Military career Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Brind was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in December 1897.Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives He served in the Second Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1900, where he took part in operations in the Orange Free State, including engagements near Vet River and Sand River, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 23 December 1900. After the war, he was promoted to the rank of captain on 11 April 1902, and from February 1903 was division adjutant stationed at Malta.Hart′s Army list, 1904, page 183
Following the outbreak of the First World War, which saw him attending the Staff College, Camberley as a student,Smart, p. 40 Brind was sent to France as a captain with the Royal Garrison Artillery on 16 August 1914.J.E.S. Brind's WWI Medal Index Card, The National Archive, Kew, Surrey, England. He then served as a general staff officer, grade 1 with the 56th (London) Division from 6 February 1916 to 31 October 1916, for which he received the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel while employed in this role.Dudley-Ward, C.H., 'The 56th Division' (Pub. John Murray (1921), p. 315. He then became a brigadier on the general staff of XI Corps, part of the Fifth Army.Official History 1918 Volume V, p 125 and Appendix I.
After the war, Brind, who in January 1919 was promoted to brevet colonel, became Deputy Director at the War Office in 1923, colonel Royal Artillery at Aldershot Command in 1925 and brigadier on the general staff at Aldershot Command in 1927.
After becoming major general, Royal Artillery in India in 1930, he went on to be Deputy Chief of the General Staff at Army Headquarters, India in 1931 and then, on 21 July 1933, became general officer commanding (GOC) of the 4th Division, taking over from Major General Charles Bonham-Carter. His final appointments were as Commander-in-Chief, International Force in the Saar in 1934, an appointment he relinquished on 1 March 1935, Adjutant-General, India in 1936, after being promoted to lieutenant general in March 1935, and General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Southern Command in October 1937, serving in that role in the early years of the Second World War before retiring in April 1941. In August 1936 he succeeded Major General Sir George Forestier-Walker as colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery. He relinquished command of the 4th Division and was placed on half-pay on 1 June 1935.
Honours and awards
By 1929, Brind held the Croix de Guerre (France), Legion of Honour (France), the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy), and the Military Order of Aviz (Portugal).
Retirement In retirement Brind became Civil Defence Deputy Regional Commissioner for the North Eastern Region of England for the latter years of the Second World War.Deputy Regional Commissioners Hansard, 24 July 1941 He also wrote a Brind family history.
References
Sources Official History 1918: Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, Military Operations France and Belgium, 1918 Volume V: 26 September – 11 November: The Advance to Victory 1947 (reprint Imperial War Museum, 1992) ().