SIR ERNEST DUNLOP SWINTON

Major-General Sir

Ernest

Dunlop

Swinton, KBE, CB, DSO (21 October 1868 15

January 1951) was a British Army officer who was
active

in

the

development

and

adoption

of

the tank during the First World War. He was also a

war correspondent and author of several allegorical
works of fiction on military themes, including a
lastingly influential book on tactics and good
practice. He is credited with having coined the word
"tank" as a code-name for the first tracked, armoured
fighting vehicles.

Early life and career[edit]

Swinton was born in Bangalore, India, in 1868. His father worked for
theMadras Civil

Service.

Swinton

was

educated

at University

College

School, Rugby School, Cheltenham College, Blackheath Proprietary School, and

the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He became an officer in the Corps of
Royal Engineers in 1888, serving in India and becoming Lieutenant in 1891.
He served as a Captain during the Second Boer War (18991901), and received
the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in November 1900.[1]Although principally
concerned with railway construction, he took a keen interest in tactics,
fortifications, and the effectiveness of modern weaponry, especially the recently
introduced machine-gun. After the war, he wrote his book on small unit
tactics, The Defence of Duffer's Drift, a military classic on minor tactics that has
been used by theCanadian and British Armies to train their NCOs and officers
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and US military to train its officers. [2][3] In the years leading up to the First World
War, he served as a staff officer and as an official historian of the RussoJapanese War.

First World War[edit]

The War Minister, Lord Kitchener, appointed Swinton as the official British war
correspondent on the Western Front. Journalists were not allowed at the front,
and Swinton's reports were censored, leading to an effectively uncontroversial
although even-handed reporting.

Development of tanks[edit]
Swinton recounts in his book Eyewitness how he first got the sudden idea to
build a tank on 19 October 1914, while driving a car in France. It is known that in
July 1914 he received a letter from a friend, a mining engineer named Hugh F.
Marriott whom he had met while in South Africa. Marriott occasionally sent
Swinton news of technical developments that might have a military application,
and his letter described a machine he had seen in Antwerp, an Americanmade Holt Caterpillar Tractor. He suggested that the machine might be useful for
transport, and Swinton passed the information on to several military and political
figures he thought it might interest. At the time, with no apparent prospect of war,
the idea seemed to be a matter only of transport efficiency, and Swinton forgot
about the matter. The idea of a caterpillar track as the basis for a fighting vehicle
occurred to him only as he drove from St. Omer to Calais on the morning of 19
October.
In Britain, David Roberts of Richard Hornsby & Sons had attempted starting in
1911 to interest British military officials in a tracked vehicle, but failed. Benjamin
Holt of the Holt Manufacturing Company bought the patents related to the "chain
track"track-type tractor from Richard Hornsby & Sons in 1914[4] for 4,000. When
World War I broke out, with the problem oftrench warfare and the difficulty of
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transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of crawling-type tractors drew
the attention of the military.
The British War Office conducted trials with Holt tractors at Aldershot but saw
them only as suitable for towing heavy artillery. Major Swinton was sent to
France as an army war correspondent. In November 1914 he suggested to
Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the
construction of a bullet-proof, tracked vehicle that could destroy enemy machine
guns.[5]
In 1916 Swinton was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and given responsibility for
training the first tank units. He created the first tactical instructions for armoured
warfare. The Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors decided after the war
that the inventors of the tank were Sir William Tritton, managing director
of Fosters and Major Walter Gordon Wilson. By 1918, the War Office had
received 2,100 Holt tractors.[6]

Swinton and Benjamin Holt inStockton, California on 22

April 1918, with a Holt caterpillar tractor (right) and a
model of a British tank (left).

In April 1918, while on a tour of the USA, Swinton

visited Stockton,

California to

publicly

honour

Benjamin Holt and the company for their contribution to the war effort and to
relay Britain's gratitude to the inventor. Benjamin Holt was recognised by the
General at a public meeting held in Stockton.[7]

Post-war[edit]
In 1919 Swinton retired as a Major General. He subsequently served in the Civil
Aviation department at the Air Ministry. He thereafter joined Citron in 1922 as a
director. He was Chichele Professor of Military History at Oxford University and
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aFellow of All Souls College, Oxford from 1925 to 1939; he was also Colonel
Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps from 1934 to 1938. In 1938, he
editedTwenty Years After: the Battlefields of 191418: then and Now a
publication of George Newnes Limited which was planned for issue in 20 parts
and which ultimately amounted to 42. The magazine-style publication contained
wartime and present-day (ca. 1938) images of France.[8]

Family life[edit]
Swinton married Grace Louise Clayton in 1897 and they had two sons and a
daughter. His daughter died in a road accident during the Second World War.
[9]

Swinton died in Oxford on 15 January 1951.[9]

Honours and awards[edit]

DSO : Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) 29

November 1900 in recognition of services during operations in South Africa.
[1]

CB : Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) 12 February 1917 in

recognition of services during the war.[9][10]

KBE : Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire 2 June

1923 in the King's Birthday Honours.[9][11]

Croix de Chevalier of the Legion of Honour 1916 in recognition of

distinguished service during the campaign[

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