Aylmer Hunter-Weston - Early Career

Early Career

Commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1884 he served on the Indian North West Frontier and took part in the Miranzai Expedition of 1891 and was wounded during the Waziristan Expedition of 1894-95. During this time he was promoted to brevet major. He was on General Herbert Kitchener's staff in 1896. He later took part in the Second Boer War in South Africa between 1899 and 1902 as a staff officer then as commander of the Mounted Engineers; he was described as having "reckless courage combined with technical skill and great coolness in emergency".

He was General Sir John French's chief staff officer in the Eastern Command from 1904 to 1908, after which he performed the same role in the Scottish Command until 1911. He married Grace Strang-Steel in 1905. In 1911, he became the Assistant Director of military training; in the same year, he succeeded his mother as the 27th Laird of Hunterston and was made a member of the Order of the Bath.

At the outbreak of the war in 1914, he was a brigadier general in command of the 11th Infantry Brigade based at Colchester, and he commanded this unit as part of 4th Division on the Western Front, including at the battles of Le Cateau and the Aisne, where he supervised his command from a motorbike (at a time when senior generals used cars and most other officers used horses). He "often appeared in the most surprising places" and his handling of the brigade was "skilful".