# Charles Hull (British Army officer)

Major-General Sir Charles Patrick Amyatt Hull, KCB (3 July 1865 – 24 July 1920) was a senior British Army officer who served during the Second Boer War and World War I. He was the father of Field Marshal Sir Richard Hull and the grandfather of Lieutenant General Richard Swinburn.

## Military career

Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Hull was commissioned as a subaltern, with the rank of lieutenant, into the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment in April 1886. He transferred to the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the Regular Army, in November 1887 as a second lieutenant.
He was promoted to lieutenant on 10 September 1890, and to captain on 24 February 1897. Appointed adjutant of his regiment's 2nd Battalion on 23 January 1899, he was among the officers in charge as the battalion was sent to South Africa in late October 1899, following the outbreak of the Second Boer War. He was wounded at the Battle of the Tugela Heights in late February 1900, as his battalion took part in the relief of Ladysmith. He was promoted to brevet major in November 1900.
After having returned to Britain, he attended the Staff College, Camberley as a student from January 1902. Shortly after completion of the course, he was made a brigade major of the 11th Brigade in November 1903. He was promoted from captain, to which he had been promoted in June 1903, and brevet major to major in December 1908. He then served as a general staff officer, grade 2 (GSO2) at the Staff College from March 1909 and was granted the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel while serving in this position.
In February 1912 he was transferred to the Middlesex Regiment where he received a promotion to the substantive rank of lieutenant colonel.
He became (CO) of the 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in August 1914, the same month of the British entry into World War I. He led his battalion at the Battle of Mons later that month and at the Great Retreat in September 1914. Upon being promoted to temporary brigadier general on 13 November, (later amended to 18 November) he went on to be commander of the 10th Infantry Brigade after Lieutenant Colonel Norman McMahon was killed before he could take up the appointment. Hull, who in February was promoted to brevet colonel, would command the brigade, part of the 4th Division, throughout the rest of the year and into early 1916. After receiving a further promotion to temporary major general in February 1916, and to substantive colonel the same month, Hull became general officer commanding (GOC) 56th (1/1st London) Division, a Territorial Force (TF) formation which, under his command, "certainly had a reputation for getting things done". He commanded the division for the next two years, most notably during the attack on the Gommecourt Salient in late June 1916. His rank of major general became substantive in January 1917. After a period of recovery following major surgery in the United Kingdom in the autumn and winter of 1917, he became GOC of the 16th (Irish) Division in February 1918, only to return to the 56th Division in May, and commanding it for the remainder of the war.
He transferred to become GOC 43rd (Wessex) Division, another TF formation, in June 1919 before retiring from the army in 1920 before his death at the relatively early age of 55 in July that year.