Neville Cameron

Major-General Neville John Gordon Cameron (9 October 1873 – 5 December 1955) was a British Army officer who served with distinction in many conflicts throughout his almost forty years of military service, most notably during the First World War, serving successively as a staff officer and a brigade and division commander. Military career Born in Southsea, Hampshire, the third son of General Sir William Gordon Cameron and educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Cameron was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in December 1892. He saw action in the Sudan in 1898 during the Mahdist War. He was present at the Battle of Atbara and the Siege of Khartoum He then served in the Second Boer War, also known as the South African War, from 1900 to 1902. He served with the 2nd Brigade as its brigade major from August 1909 until September 1913, before becoming a staff officer at the War Office in London. Shortly after the British entry into World War I in August 1914, Cameron went to France with the 1st Division as its Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General. Following the conclusion of this assignment, he was a General Staff Officer Grade 1 with Scottish Command and later the 34th Division, with which he fought in the Battle of the Somme in the second half of 1916, by which time he was commanding the 34th Division's 103rd (Tyneside Irish) Brigade, having assumed command of the brigade the previous December. Cameron was badly wounded by enemy machine gun fire on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme offensive, and his brigade sustained severe casualties.