Arthur Lynden-Bell

Lynden-Bell was the son of Major-General Thomas Lynden Lynden-Bell and younger brother of Colonel Charles Perceval Lynden-Bell.[2] He was educated at Clifton College."Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p88: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948

He attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and commissioned as a Lieutenant into the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) in May 1885.[3] After promotion to Captain on 31 January 1894, he served the following year on the North West Frontier of British India and attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1898.[3] A year later, he saw active service in the Second Boer War, commanding a mounted infantry contingent of the Buffs.[3]

In 1900, he became a Staff Captain for intelligence in the War Office and a year later was made Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General for intelligence at the War Office on 20 July 1901.[4][3] He was promoted to Major on 3 May 1902,[5] and appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1905. In 1907, Lynden-Bell became General Staff Officer Southern Command and in 1911, he became General Staff Officer Lowland Division.[3]

At the start of the World War I Lynden-Bell was Assistant Quartermaster-General of the British Expeditionary Force.[6][7] In 1915 he served as Chief of General Staff of the Mediterranean and Egypt Expeditionary Force, and saw service in the Gallipoli Campaign, being Mentioned in Dispatches.[8][9] In 1916-1917 he was the Chief-of-Staff of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Sir Archibald Murray, but was removed from the post and returned home in mid-1917 soon after the arrival of Edmund Allenby in Cairo to replace Murray.[10]

Lynden-Bell was appointed a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1917.[11] In 1918 he was Director of Staff Duties at the War Office.[3]

He retired from the regular army in 1924, and in 1928 became Colonel of the Buffs, serving in the position until 1 January 1937.[3]

In retirement, he served as a Deputy Lieutenant and as a Justice of the Peace[1] and was a "very keen supporter" of Kent County Cricket Club, always attending Canterbury Cricket Week in the Buff's tent at the St Lawrence Ground.[12]

Lynden-Bell died at Platt near Sevenoaks in Kent in 1943, aged 76.[12]

He married the Hon. Bertha Marion Akers-Douglas, daughter of Aretas Akers-Douglas, 1st Viscount Chilston and Adeline Mary Austen-Smith, on 2 June 1905.

He appears in the war memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence.

• "Lynden-Bell, Major-General Sir Arthur Lyden" . Thom's Irish Who's Who . Dublin: Alexander Thom and Son Ltd. 1923. p. 142  – via Wikisource.