List of commanders of the British 1st Division

The 1st Division is a division of the British Army; the division was first formed in 1809. The head of the division is a general officer commanding (GOC), who receives orders from a level above him in the chain of command, and then uses the forces within the division to undertake the mission assigned. In addition to directing the tactical battle the division is involved in, the GOC oversees a staff and the administrative, logistical, medical, training, and discipline of the formation. The 1st Division has had 81 different permanent GOCs over a 200-year history.

Prior to 1809, the British Army did not use divisional formations. As the British military grew in size during the Napoleonic Wars, the need arose for such formations, in order to better organise forces. The 1st Division was formed on 18 June 1809 by Lieutenant-General Arthur Wellesley, and it served in the Peninsular War. After the conclusion of the War of the Sixth Coalition, the division was broken-up in France and its troops dispersed to the UK or dispatched to North America to take part in the War of 1812. It was reformed the following year, when the War of the Seventh Coalition began, and it subsequently fought at the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. In the latter battle, the division's GOC, George Cooke, was severely wounded, while his troops helped repulse the final attack of the day, which had been launched by the French Imperial Guard. With the end of the war, the division became part of the Army of Occupation based in France. It remained there until December 1818, when it was disbanded upon the British withdrawal and the end of the occupation.

During the mid- to late-19th century, several formations bearing the name 1st Division were formed, each for a particular conflict. Per the division's official website, only three such formations form part of its lineage: those that fought in the Crimean War (1854–1856), the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), and the Second Boer War (1899–1900). In 1902, the division was reformed as a permanent formation within the British Army, and was stationed at Aldershot. The division fought in both World Wars. During the First World War (1914–1918), it was deployed to France and fought on the Western Front throughout the conflict. At the First Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant-General Samuel Lomax, the division's GOC, was wounded in action. In 1918, following the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the division marched into Germany and became part of the occupation force, the British Army of the Rhine. In March 1919, the 1st Division was redesignated as the Western Division. It was then reformed as the 1st Division on 4 June 1919, at Aldershot, and was the only division maintained in a state of readiness in the immediate post-war years; detachments were dispatched to take part in the Irish War of Independence, to reinforce the Occupation of Constantinople, and to help oversee the 1935 Saar status referendum. From September to December 1936, the entire division was deployed to Palestine during the opening stages of the Arab revolt, with most of it having been sent back to the UK by the end of the year, with the remaining troops going home in 1937. During the Second World War, the division took part in the Battle of France, the Tunisian campaign, and the Italian campaign. In February 1945, it was transferred from Italy to Palestine and remained there for the duration of the war.

In the ten-year period following the end of the Second World War, the division moved between Palestine, Egypt, and Libya. Then, in November 1955, it returned to the UK where it remained for five years until it was disbanded on 30 June 1960. The following day in Germany, 1 July 1960, the 5th Division was redesignated as the 1st Division. On 1 April 1978, the division was renamed as the 1st Armoured Division, which subsequently fought in the Gulf War, where it overran five Iraqi divisions, and took 7,000 prisoners, during a 48-hour period. With the end of the Cold War, the British government enacted Options for Change, which resulted in the division being disbanded in Germany on 31 December 1992. It was soon reformed, when in July 1993 the 4th Armoured Division was redesignated as the 1st (UK) Armoured Division. Peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Cyprus, and Kosovo followed during the mid to late 1990s. In 2003, the division led the British contribution to the invasion of Iraq. As part of the Army 2020 restructuring, the formation was renamed the 1st (United Kingdom) Division and was relocated from Germany to York, England.