Colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 William Baume Capper CVO

Royal Victorian Order

The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...

 (6 February 1856 – 15 January 1934) was a British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 officer who became Commandant of the Royal Military College Sandhurst.

Military career

Capper was born on 6 February 1856, his father William Copeland Capper having been in the Bengal Civil Service. Educated at Haileybury

Haileybury and Imperial Service College

Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...

, Capper was commissioned into the 85th Regiment of Foot

85th Regiment of Foot (Bucks Volunteers)

The 85th Regiment of Foot was a British Army line infantry regiment. During the Childers Reforms it was united with the 53rd Regiment of Foot to form the King's Shropshire Light Infantry.-Service history:...

 in 1876 and subsequently played cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 for Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

. He became adjutant of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1886. He served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War

Second Anglo-Afghan War

The Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the nation was ruled by Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty, the son of former Emir Dost Mohammad Khan. This was the second time British India invaded Afghanistan. The war ended in a manner...

, in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War and in the Mahdist War

Mahdist War

The Mahdist War was a colonial war of the late 19th century. It was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese and the Egyptian and later British forces. It has also been called the Anglo-Sudan War or the Sudanese Mahdist Revolt. The British have called their part in the conflict the Sudan Campaign...

 in Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

 from 1884 to 1885. He was Commandant of the Royal Military College Sandhurst from 1907 to 1911 and then served in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Family

In 1888 he married Helen Margaret Parry; they had two daughters. He had three brothers all who served in the Army, one was Major-General Sir Thompson Capper

Thompson Capper

Major General Sir Thompson Capper KCMG CB DSO was a highly decorated and senior British Army officer who served with distinction in the Second Boer War and was a divisional commander during the First World War...

 KCMG, CB, DSO who was killed in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, and another was Major-General Sir John Edward Capper

John Capper

Major-General Sir John Edward Capper KCB KCVO was a senior officer of the British Army during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who served on the North-West Frontier of British India, in South Africa and during the First World War, where he was instrumental in the development of the...

.