David Egerton (British Army officer)

Major-General Sir David Boswell Egerton, 16th Baronet, (24 July 1914 – 17 November 2010), was a senior British Army officer from the aristocratic Egerton family.

Family
His immediate family were cadets of the ancient and noble Egertons, seated at Oulton in Cheshire since the Middle Ages.

His father, Wion Egerton, was born in the Punjab in 1879 and joined the Royal Navy, being awarded the DSO in 1917 and rising to the rank of Vice-Admiral. Admiral Egerton died in 1943 whilst his mother Anita, only daughter of Major Albert Rudolph David, died in 1972.

His grandfather, uncle of Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, 14th Baronet, was Field Marshal Sir Charles Egerton, who was commissioned into the Indian Army.

Career
Egerton was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and served with distinction in the Second World War. A career soldier, he was Director-General of Artillery in the Ministry of Defence (1964–67), Vice-President and Senior Army Member Ordnance Board (1967–69), President (1969–70) and Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery until 1975. After being promoted to the rank of Major-General he retired from the British Army and was appointed Secretary-General of the Association of Recognised English Language Services (1971–79), being elected a Fellow of the Institute of Linguists (FIL).

Personal life
On 10 April 1946, Egerton married Margaret Gillian (died 24 August 2004), youngest daughter of Canon Charles Cuthbert Inge, Rector of Streatley, Berkshire.

Succeeding his second cousin, Sir John Grey-Egerton, 15th Baronet, to the baronetcy in 2008, the style of "Sir David Egerton" was not one to which he became accustomed, having long been known as "Major-General Egerton".

General Egerton and his wife had three children: William (now Sir William Egerton, born 1949), who succeeded to the baronetcy in 2010, and two daughters, Charlotte now Dixon (born 1950) and Caroline now White (born 1955).