Australian Army Lieutenant General. A veteran of World Wars I and II, he rose in rank to become the commander of Australia's Northern and Eastern Commands. The third son of a miner, he excelled in sports as a youth, first at Swifts Creek State School and then at a boarding school in Ballarat, Australia. He began his military career in 1915 when he entered the Australian Royal Military College at Duntroon, graduating in December 1917. In January 1918 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Australian Imperial Force and assigned to the 15th Field Company, Engineers on the Western Front in France. Following the end of World War I he was assigned as adjutant of the Australian 5th Division and attended engineering training in England before returning to Australia. He then served in a number of staff positions with Royal Australian Engineering units and studied engineering at Melbourne University from 1922 until 1923. In 1936, at the rank of major, he became an instructor at the Royal Military College. When World War II broke out in September 1939 he was temporarily promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanded the Engineering elements of Australia's 7th Division. In May 1941 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and sent to the Middle East where he performed engineering duties in North Africa and additional duty as the assistant divisional adjutant and quartermaster-general during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign (June to July 1941). Later that year he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and transferred to Australia's 1st Corps, where he was sent to the South West Pacific Theater of Operations, serving in Java and then in Australia. In October 1942 he was placed in charge of the Combined Operational Service Command and sent to Port Moresby, New Guinea, where he was responsible for the construction of communication lines for the Allied Forces there. After the Japanese surrender in September 1945, he became the Australian Army Deputy Quartermaster-General. In 1946 he became the Engineer-in-Chief of the Australian General Staff. In 1949 he was promoted to the rank of major general, serving as Master-General of Ordinance until 1951, when he became the commander of Australia's Northern Command in Brisbane, followed 12 months later as commander of Australia's Eastern Command in Sydney. He retired in April 1954 at the rank of honorary lieutenant general with 37 years of continuous military service. His awards and decorations include the Companion of the Order of the Bath, the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the American Medal of Freedom (with silver palm), and mentioned in dispatches (one whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which is described the soldier's gallant or meritorious action in the face of the enemy) on three separate occasions. Following his military retirement, he became a cattle rancher. He died from cancer at the age of 65.