Ronald Weeks, 1st Baron Weeks

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The Lord Weeks
Ronald Weeks in 1942.jpg
Born(1890-11-13)13 November 1890
Died19 August 1960(1960-08-19) (aged 69)
AllegianceUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
Service/branchFlag of the British Army.svg British Army
RankLieutenant-General
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Distinguished Service Order
Military Cross & Bar

Lieutenant-General Ronald Morce Weeks, 1st Baron Weeks KCB, CBE, DSO, MC & Bar, TD (13 November 1890 – 19 August 1960) was a British Army general during the Second World War.

Military career[]

Lady Weeks, wife of Lieutenant General Sir Ronald Weeks, Deputy Chief of Imperial Staff, walking with Commander E R Micklem, CBE, Managing Director of Vickers Armstrong, at the Vickers Armstrong Yard in Barrow-in-Furness.

Weeks was commissioned into the South Lancashire Regiment of the Territorial Army in 1913.[1] He served in the Rifle Brigade during the First World War and then retired from military service in 1919.[1]

He was re-employed during the Second World War, initially as Chief of Staff for the Territorial Division and then as a brigadier on the General Staff of Home Forces in 1940.[1] He was promoted to acting major-general on 17 March 1941[2] and was appointed Director General of Army Equipment in 1941 and Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1942.[1] He then became Deputy Military Governor and Chief of Staff of the British Zone for the Allied Control Council in Germany in 1945; in that capacity he was involved in negotiations to avoid the Berlin Blockade.[3] He retired from the British Army later that year.[1]

He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917,[4] and a Bar to the Military Cross in 1918.[5] He was appointed to the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1918,[6] made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1939[7] and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1943.[8]

Later life[]

After the war, Weeks became Chairman of Vickers.[9] In 1956 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Weeks, of Ryton in the County Palatine of Durham.[10]

Marriages and children[]

Weeks married Evelyn Elsie Haynes on 21 April 1922. They were divorced in 1930. On 3 February 1931, he married Cynthia Mary Irvine. With his second wife he had two daughters:[11]

Weeks died on 19 August 1960, aged 69, when, in the absence of male heirs, the barony became extinct.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
  2. ^ "No. 35118". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 March 1941. p. 1783.
  3. ^ Berlin Airlift: The Salvation of a City By Jon Sutherland, Diane Canwell, Page 11 Pelican, 2008, ISBN 978-1-58980-550-7
  4. ^ "No. 29886". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1917. p. 43.
  5. ^ "No. 30813". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 July 1918. p. 8767.
  6. ^ "No. 30450". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1918. p. 27.
  7. ^ "No. 34585". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 January 1939. p. 8.
  8. ^ "No. 36033". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 June 1943. p. 2419.
  9. ^ Rotol-Messier Apprentices Rewarded Flight, 20 May 1955
  10. ^ "No. 40827". The London Gazette. 10 July 1956. p. 4025.
  11. ^ "Lord Weeks". The Peerage. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  12. ^ "Obituary of Henry Walter Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax". Daily Echo. 21 July 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2018.

Bibliography[]

  • Smart, Nick (2005). Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Barnesley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 1844150496.

External links[]

Military offices
Preceded by
None
 Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff
1942–1945 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Weeks
1956–1960 		Extinct
Retrieved from ""