John Capper Major - General Sir John Edward Capper ( 7 December 1861 – 24 May 1955 ) was a senior officer of the British Army during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who served on the North - West Frontier of British India , in South Africa and during the First World War , where he was instrumental in the development of the tank . An experienced engineer , Capper was involved in numerous building projects during his years in India and pioneered the development of airships in Britain . He helped establish and command several military training establishments in Britain , was involved in large - scale military planning during 1918 and 1919 and was pivotal in establishing the tank as an important feature of the British Army . Although Capper was sometimes described as pompous and possessing poor communication skills , earning the nickname " Stone Age " for his attitude towards the ideas of junior officers in the Royal Tank Corps , he nevertheless played a vital role in the development and deployment of armoured vehicles in the British Army . India , South Africa and airships . John Capper was born in Lucknow , India to civil servant William Copeland Capper and his wife Sarah in December 1861 . Returning to England at an early age for education , Capper attended Wellington College and upon leaving in 1880 enrolled in the Royal Military Academy , Woolwich and was subsequently commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a lieutenant . A capable engineering officer , Capper served in India and Burma for most of the first 17 years of his career , principally employed on military and public construction projects . He performed well in this position , being promoted to captain in 1889 . In 1897 , Capper was attached to the force dispatched to the Tirah Campaign on the North - West Frontier of British India . At the campaign ' s successful conclusion , he was promoted to major and transferred to South Africa while his wife Edith Mary ( " neé " Beausire ) and their son John Beausire Copeland Capper returned to England . Arriving in South Africa at the outbreak of the Second Boer War , Capper became deputy assistant director of railways , a vital job given the lengthy and dangerous supply routes along which the war was fought . In 1900 , he received the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel and commanded several locally raised units , eventually becoming the commandant at Johannesburg . On 31 October 1902 , he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath . Returning to England as a full colonel at the war ' s conclusion he settled with his family at Bramdean House in Alresford , and was attached to the School of Ballooning , the Army ' s training and experimental establishment at Aldershot , under the command of Col James Templer . He was made Superintendent of the Royal Balloon Factory , and was placed in charge of developing Britain ' s first military airship , the " Nulli Secundus " . In 1906 he became Superintendent of the Balloon Factory . He piloted the first successful British airship flight , that of the " Nulli Secundus " over London during 1907 . On Templer ' s retirement from service in 1908 , Capper became commander of the entire balloon establishment . In 1909 the Balloon Factory was removed from the command of the Army and a new superintendent , Mervyn O ' Gorman , appointed . Capper remained in command of the Balloon School , but left in 1910 , being transferred to command of the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham , which he ran until September 1914 when the lack of experienced officers forced his transfer to France in the early months of the First World War . First World War . As a brigadier - general , Capper was first made deputy inspector of the lines of communication before being given the post of Chief Engineer to the Third Corps . In July 1915 he was promoted to major - general and made chief engineer of the British Third Army . In October , following the deaths of several senior officers at the Battle of Loos , including Capper ' s younger brother Major - General Sir Thompson Capper , he was promoted to overall command of the 24th Division . Capper remained in command of the division for the next 18 months , including periods of heavy fighting at the Battle of the Somme , in which his son John was killed in action serving with the Royal Artillery . The division also spent extensive periods of time in other sections of the line and gained extensive battle experience at the cost of high casualties . As a reward for his service in command of the division , he was presented with the Commander ' s Cross of the Légion d ' honneur by the French government . In May 1917 , he was recalled to England , initially to run the Machine - Gun Corps training centre and from 28 July hold the position of Director - General of the newly formed Tank Corps at the War Office . Operational command of tanks at the frontlines was in the hands of Hugh Elles , the first commander of the Heavy Branch . Although tanks had first been introduced on the Somme the year before , their design and manufacture were both inadequate and the tactics of their deployment almost non - existent . Capper ' s job at the Tank Corps was to shape the organisation of the unit into an efficient battlefield force , improve mechanical reliability and develop effective tactics . It was in this role that Capper was given the nickname " Stone Age " , as his subordinates considered him to be unwilling to accept new innovations in tank tactics . In fact , Capper was an able tactician who worked with General J . F . C . Fuller to develop a plan for a large scale armoured assault on German lines in 1919 ( known as Plan 1919 ) : his subordinates ' prejudices were based on Capper ' s rigid adherence to the military hierarchy and his consequent failure to communicate his ideas to those below his rank . For his services as Director General of the Tank Corps , Capper was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath . Retirement . In July 1918 , Capper left the War Office and commanded the 64th Division in England until May 1919 , when he took over command of Number 1 Area in France and Flanders . In September 1919 , Capper became Lieutenant - Governor of Guernsey and took over command of the island ' s military installations . He held the post for five years and during that time was made Colonel - Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps . On 11 July 1921 , he was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order . Retiring in 1925 , Capper remained associated with the Tank Corps and also became a governor of Wellington College , associations he retained until 1946 . During the Second World War , Capper joined the Hampshire Home Guard and remained on duty with the unit until 1943 . Post - War he retired fully to Bramdean House and remained there until shortly before his death . He was widowed in 1953 and died at Esperance Nursing Home in Eastbourne in May 1955 , leaving a daughter . In 1971 , his collected papers , and those of his brother Thompson , who had been an instructor at the Staff College , Camberley , were donated to the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King ' s College London where they are still available to researchers .