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Major-General Philip James Shears CB (6 April 1887–7 April 1972) was a British Army officer.[1][2]
Career
editAfter working for the firm Dumas & Wylie, Shears joined the army in August 1914 and was commissioned with the 13th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He was wounded during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and the following year was given a regular commission with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. After the Fusiliers were disbanded in 1922, he served with the Border Regiment in Britain, India, China, Malta and the Sudan until 1935.[2][3]
He was appointed commandant of the Army Technical School in Chepstow in 1935. During the Second World War he served as commanding officer of the Northumbrian area (1939−1941), commanding officer of the Durham and North Riding County Division (1941) and district officer commanding the West Riding district (1941−1944).[1]
He held the rank of Colonel at the outbreak of the Second World War and was promoted to the honorary rank of Major-General upon retirement in 1945.[1] He later served as Colonel of the Border Regiment from 1947 to 1952.[4][5]
After the war Shears worked with the Officers' Association, helping to find civilian jobs for demobilized officers. In 1948 he published The Story of the Border Regiment, 1939-1945. He joined the Huguenot Society of London in 1955 and was its president from 1959 to 1962 and later its vice-president.[2][6] An active member of the Society for many years, he also wrote a number of articles for its journal.[7]
Personal life
editShears was born in Surbiton, Surrey, to James Charles Shears (1857−1924), a mechanical engineer, and Beatrice Jane Margaret Dumas (1859−1917). He was descended from the Shears family of coppersmiths and the Huguenot Henry Dumas (1794−1843), who settled in England in the 1820s.[2]
In 1911 he married Mary Ellen Gibbons (1888−1976). Their only child, Pauline Mary Beatrice Shears (1912−2002), was the wife of James MacNabb.
Honours
editShears was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1919.[8] In 1944 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.[2]
See also
editNational Portrait Gallery, photograph of Philip Shears by Walter Stoneman, 1943.
References
edit- ^ a b c Generals of WWII, Shears, Philip James. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, obituary of Philip James Shears, vol. 22, 1976, p. 165.
- ^ Imperial War Museum, Lives of the First World War, Philip James Shears, source 9504748. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
- ^ Royal United Services Institution Journal, "Army Notes", vol. 92 (566), 1947, pp. 297−302.
- ^ The London Gazette, vol. 2, 1952, p. 3223.
- ^ Huguenot Society, List of presidents since 1885. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
- ^ Huguenot Society, Contents of Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London (1885−1985), and Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1986−2012). Retrieved 21 August 2024.
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 14 July 1919, p. 8958. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
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