William Capper

Colonel William Baume Capper CVO (6 February 1856 – 15 January 1934) was a British Army officer who became Commandant of the Royal Military College Sandhurst.

William Capper
Born	6 February 1856 Bath, Somerset, England
Died	15 January 1934 (aged 77) Bath, Somerset, England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1876–1913
Rank	Colonel
Commands held	RMC Sandhurst
Awards	Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Military career

Capper was born on 6 February 1856 at Newbridge Hill, Bath, Somerset,[1] his father William Copeland Capper having been in the Bengal Civil Service. Educated at Haileybury,[2] Capper was commissioned into the 85th Regiment of Foot in 1876[3] and subsequently played cricket for Shropshire[4] in 1882-83 and for Staffordshire.[1] He became adjutant of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1886.[5] He served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War and in the Mahdist War in Sudan from 1884 to 1885.[6] He was Commandant of the Royal Military College Sandhurst from 1907 to 1911[7] and then served in World War I, following which he was made a CVO in 1919.[6]

Family

In 1888 he married Helen Margaret Parry; they had two daughters.[6] He died aged 77 in January 1934 at Newbridge Hill, Bath.[1]

He had three brothers all who served in the Army, one was Major-General Sir Thompson Capper KCMG, CB, DSO who was killed in World War I,[8] and another was Major-General Sir John Edward Capper.[9]

References

1. Percival, Tony (1999). Shropshire Cricketers 1844-1998. A.C.S. Publications, Nottingham. pp. 9, 42. ISBN 1-902171-17-9.Published by Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians.
2. Egypt
3. "No. 24292". The London Gazette. 11 February 1876. p. 589.
4. Cricket Archive
5. "No. 25615". The London Gazette. 10 August 1886. p. 3856.
6. Armorial families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (page 82)
7. Army Commands
8. Godden Green War Memorial
9. Sir John Edward Capper, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Retrieved 11 August 2007 (subscription needed)