Harry Pritchard (British Army officer)


Harry Lionel Pritchard was General Officer Commanding Malaya Command.

Military career

Pritchard was the son of Colonel Hurlock Pritchard, CSI, of Camberley, and was educated at Charterhouse School. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1891. He took part in the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War in 1895 and was then transferred to the Egyptian Army in 1896 taking part in the Siege of Khartoum the following year. He was awarded the DSO for service in the Sudan.
He served in the Second Boer War in 1899 and then became a Deputy Assistant Director at the War Office in 1904 before becoming Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General in India in 1907.
He served in World War I initially in France and Belgium and then in Egypt before being made Chief Engineer for Middle East Forces in 1916. He was severely wounded in 1917.
After the War he was appointed Chief Engineer at Northern Command in 1921 and then Assistant Director for Fortifications and Works at the War Office in 1923. In 1926 he was appointed Chief Engineer for Eastern Command and in 1929 he became General Officer Commanding Malaya Command. His final appointment was as Commandant of the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham in 1931; he retired in 1933.

Family

Pritchard married at the parish church, Frimley, on 3 September 1902, Elizabeth Gilbert Furse, daughter of E. Furse, of Alphington, Frimley.