General Sir Charles Harington Harington GCB GBE DSO

Charles Harington was born in Chichester on 31 May 1872. His father was Emanuel Thomas Poë. His mother was Isabella Jane Crowdy. Charles was christened Charles Harington Poë but his father changed the family name to Harington in 1876, thus giving young Charles the double Harington name. Harington was the maiden name of Emanuel’s mother. Actually Charles acquired the nickname of Tim by which he was known in the army.
After his education at Cheltenham College he went to Sandhurst in 1890 and was commissioned into the 2nd Bn King’s Liverpool Regiment on 9 Jan 1892. In 1897 he was appointed Adjutant and served in the Boer War as a railway staff officer for which he earned the DSO. He was posted to Sandhurst as an instructor in 1903 and the Staff College in 1906. In 1911 he was in Aldershot as brigade Major to 6th Brigade.
In WW1 Harrington began in the War Office, Mobilisation Branch, then became General Staff Officer in III Corps. In 1915 he was with the 49th (West Riding) Division as GSO1 but after a few months was transferred to the Canadian Corps as a Brigadier General on the staff. He was at the Battle of Mount Sorrel and was Plumer’s Chief of Staff coordinating the Battle of Messines where a huge mine explosion killed 10,000 Germans.
Harington controversially supported Brigadier Dyer, the man responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar in 1919, although his attitude was common amongst the senior army officers including his superior, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, under whom Harington worked as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff. In 1920 Harington assumed command of the Army of the Black Sea, occupying parts of Turkey. They were caught in the middle of the war between Greece and Turkey (1919-22). In 1923 he was GOC Northern Command in the UK. In the same year he was appointed Colonel of the King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was GOC Western Command in 1927 and GOC Aldershot in 1931. In 1933 he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War.
Sir Charles (Tim) Harington Harington GCB GBE DSO died in Cheltenham on 22 Oct 1940. He published two memoirs; Plumer of Messines (1935) and Tim Harington Looks Back (J Murray 1940). The photo, by Bassano in 1915 shows him with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, wearing a red-banded staff officer’s forage cap and red gorget patches on his collar.

Regimental Details | Colonels