Brigadier Sir Christopher Henry Maxwell Peto, 3rd Baronet, (19 February 1897 – 19 May 1980) was a senior officer in the British Army during the Second World War and a post-war Conservative Party politician.
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Early life
Peto was born in Chertsey, Surrey, on 19 February 1897, the son of Sir Basil Peto, 1st Baronet and Mary Matilda Annie (née Baird).
Military service
Peto graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers on 11 August 1915. He served in both the First World War and Second World War, attaining the rank of brigadier.
Peto took command of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers in October 1938, being one of the few officers in the regiment to have seen action in the First World War. He was tasked with carrying on the mechanised training of the regiment in the buildup to the war, to mobilise it when war came and to take it to France in May 1940.
The regimental history of the Lancers has this description of him in its foreword: