General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Baronet, (7 May 1862 – 9 January 1946), known affectionately as Make-Ready (close to the correct pronunciation of his name), was a British Army officer. He served in senior staff appointments in the First World War and was the last British military commander in Ireland, and also served for two years as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in London.
Early life Macready was the son of the prominent actor William Charles Macready. His father was 69 years old at Nevil's birth. His paternal grandfather was William Macready the Elder (1755–1829), a famous Irish actor from Dublin. He was born in Cheltenham in May 1862 and was brought up in the bohemian circles frequented by his parents (his mother, Cecile, was the granddaughter of the painter, Sir William Beechey), and was educated at Marlborough College (for two years, before falling ill) and Cheltenham College. He 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 (although he continued to be involved in amateur dramatics all his life and was also a talented singer). He therefore joined the British Army, passing out from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and being commissioned as a lieutenant into the Gordon Highlanders in October 1881.
Regimental career He joined the 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders at Malta, and in 1882 went with them to Egypt, fighting at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir, the last battle in which the British Army fought in red coats. He stayed in Egypt, and in 1884 was appointed garrison adjutant and staff lieutenant of military police at Alexandria. In 1886, he married Sophia Geraldine Atkin (died 1931), an Irishwoman; they had two daughters and a son. Macready remained in Alexandria until early 1889, when he returned to England to rejoin his regiment, and then served in Ceylon and India. Having been promoted to lieutenant in October 1889, he was promoted to captain in 1891. He was transferred to Dublin in 1892, and in 1894 became adjutant of the regiment's 2nd Volunteer Battalion in Aberdeenshire. In December 1899, he was promoted major and returned to India to join the 2nd Battalion, which was sent to South Africa in September.
Boer War and South Africa Macready saw active service in the Second Boer War, serving in the besieged garrison at Ladysmith from October 1899 to February 1900. As a captain, returning from bringing in wounded, he first met Major-General John French on the battlefield of Elandslaagte, giving him a cup of coffee which he had looted from the Boers.Holmes 2004, p13 He was mentioned in dispatches twice and promoted to the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel in November 1900, and in June 1901 headed a commission investigating cattle-raiding in Zululand. He stayed in South Africa in a series of staff posts, including assistant provost marshal at Port Elizabeth (1901), deputy assistant adjutant-general (DAAG) of the district west of Johannesburg (December 1901 – 1902) (temporary appointment as assistant adjutant-general from October 1902), assistant adjutant general (AAG) and chief staff officer of Cape Colony (1903–1905), and assistant quartermaster-general (AQMG) of Cape Colony (1905–1906). He was promoted to colonel in November 1903. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1906 Birthday Honours and returned to Britain in October of that year. He was then placed on a period of half-pay.
War Office In March 1907, Macready was appointed an assistant adjutant-general in the directorate of personal services at the War Office in London, taking over from Colonel Colin Mackenzie, and helped to form the Territorial Force (TF). He was then promoted to temporary brigadier general in August 1909 and succeeded Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson in command of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot. In June 1910 he returned to the War Office as director of personal services, responsible for a variety of personnel matters. Also having responsibility for military aid to the civil power, he played a large part in a series of labour disputes and in deploying troops to Ireland in anticipation of disturbances there. Unusually for an army officer of the time, he had marked liberal tendencies, believed in the right to strike, and supported Irish home rule. He was contemptuous of politics, socialism, communism, pacifism and capitalism (unless the employers treated their employees very well).
He was promoted major-general in October, and in November he took direct command of troops deployed to deal with a possible miners' strike, in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales,Dangerfield, George, (2012) The Strange Death of Liberal England Serif: London pg.202 insisting that his troops remained subordinate both to the police and to the Home Office and not answerable to the panicking local magistrates. This policy probably helped to avert serious unrest in 1910 and again in a similar situation in 1912. A civil CB was added to his military CB in 1911 and, in June 1912 he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB). After the Curragh incident in Ireland in March 1914, Macready was made general officer commanding (GOC) Belfast District and was nominated as military governor-designate of Belfast in the event of civil war breaking out, something averted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.
First World War, Ireland and Adjutant-General
On the outbreak of war in August 1914, Macready was immediately sent to France as Adjutant-General of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He was promoted to temporary lieutenant-general on 13 September. In June 1915, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1915 Birthday Honours.
In February 1916, having carried out this job efficiently, he was recalled to London as Adjutant-General to the Forces, one of the most senior staff appointments in the British Army.
In December 1915, Macready was warned by Special Branch of the impending violence and Irish nationalist volunteer recruitment in Ireland, and from March 1916 was receiving warnings from daily police reports. At the War Office, civil servants as late as 10 April 1916, still believed there was no cause for concern in Ireland: Macready failed to understand the intentions of the nationalist leaders.Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion, (London 2006), p.146-7
Macready advised General Maxwell (whose courts-martial sentenced several of the Easter Rising's leaders to be executed) not to delay, and not to be afraid of overstepping authority.Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion, (London 2006), p.271. He was promoted lieutenant-general in June 1916 (although he was already temporarily in that rank).
Macready was an enthusiastic proponent of the employment of female labour to free men to go to the front. He also abolished the compulsory maintenance of moustaches by the Army's officers and other ranks, and immediately shaved off his own, which he had hated.http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89099963852;view=1up;seq=295 Annals of an Active Life, pp. 258–259.
During the final stages of the Battle of Passchendaele, Macready warned (4 October 1917) that the BEF could be kept up to strength if it suffered no more than a further 50,000 casualties before the end of the year, but the total exceeded this. The BEF suffered an alarming rise in drunkenness, desertions and psychological disorders; reports were gathered of soldiers returning from the front grumbling about "the waste of life" at Ypres.Woodward, 1998, pp.148–9
In September 1918 Macready was promoted full general and appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG). He had been mentioned in despatches four times during the war, been made a Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur of France (1915), 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.Debrett's Peerage, Baronage, Knightage (106th edition 2000)
Commissioner of Police In August 1918, Macready somewhat reluctantly took the post of Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London Metropolitan Police, to which Prime Minister Asquith had intended to appoint him before war broke out in 1914. Morale was low, and many men were currently on strike over pay and trade union recognition.C Townshend, 'One Man Whom You Can Hang It Necessary: The Discreet Charm of Nevil Macready', in J.B. Hattendorf & M.H.Murfett (eds.) The Limitations of Military Power (London 1990), pp.143ff. Macready got them back to work by granting a pay rise and promising the introduction of machinery for collective bargaining. He was popular among the constables and sergeants, whom he got to know far more than his predecessors had done. He abolished the system of punishment by deducting fines from men's pay over a period of months or even years. He also abolished the shilling a day deduction made from the pay of men on sick leave. He had an intense dislike of trade unions, and never took the short-lived National Union of Police and Prison Officers seriously, which partly led to the strike of 1919. Only a small percentage of the men went out on strike, and they were all dismissed, although Macready wrote a good reference for every one who asked.
Ireland Administration of justice and reform of the police
Macready disliked Ireland and the Irish. He 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".Jeffery 2006, p261
In April 1920, Macready was sent to succeed Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Shaw in command of the troops in Ireland as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) British forces operating in the counter-insurgency role against the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence (alongside Hamar Greenwood as the new Chief Secretary). He later stated in his memoirs that only loyalty to his "old Chief" Lord French (still lord lieutenant of Ireland at the time, although largely stripped of executive power in the spring of 1920) made him accept.
Macready and Greenwood insisted on restoring proper authority, which was lax and enfeebled. Macready was experienced at crisis management.C Townshend, "The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence" (Penguin 2014) He demanded a higher pension than his predecessor and an increase in "table money" (entertainment expenses) from £500 to £1,400 as well as £5,000 "disturbance allowance". He 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". Nevertheless, he was a good and dynamic commander, increasing morale, improving policy and securing additional troops and equipment. He refused to also take command of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), however, which reduced coordination between the police and Army. Major-General Hugh Tudor, a distinguished artilleryman, was appointed Police Advisor in May 1920, then Chief of Police in November 1920.Jeffery 2006, p261-2