Born 1883; educated at Summer Fields, Oxford, Winchester College and Royal Military College, Sandhurst; commissioned into The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), 1901; served in the Second Boer War, South Africa, with 2 Bn, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), 1901-1902; service in India with 2 Bn, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), 1903-1908, including Bazar Valley campaign, North West Frontier, 1908; Lt, 1904; graduated from Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, 1910; visited Russia to learn Russian language, 1911; acting Capt, 1912; General Staff Officer 3, Russian Section, Directorate of Military Operations, War Office, 1912-1914; Capt, 1913; service in World War One, 1914-1918; appointed Bde Maj, 9 Infantry Bde, 3 Div, 2 Corps, British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Belgium and France, 1914; served on Western Front, 1914-1916, seriously wounded and awarded MC, Ypres, Belgium, 1915; General Staff Officer 2, 64 (Highland) Div, Territorial Force, UK, 1915; General Staff Officer 2, General Headquarters, France, 1915-1916; Maj, 1916; temporary Lt Col, 1916; British Military Representative to Russian Gen Grand Duke Nicholas (Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov), Commander-in-Chief and Governor, Caucasus, 1916-1917; Brevet Lt Col, 1917; Liaison Officer between Gen Sir William Robert Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Gen Sir Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, General Officer Commanding in Chief Egyptian Expeditionary Force, 1917-1918; Staff Officer, Allied Supreme War Council, Versailles, France, 1918; Brig Gen General Staff, 20 Corps, 1918-1919; awarded CMG, 1919; Brig Gen General Staff, Egypt and Palestine, 1919-1920; service with 2 Bn, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), Germany, 1921; Col, 1921; Assistant Adjutant General, Adjutant General's Department, War Office, 1921-1923; General Staff Officer 1, Military Operations 1, Operations Directorate, War Office, 1923-1926; placed on half pay, 1926; General Staff Officer 1, 3 Div, UK, 1926-1930; temporary Brig, 1930; commanded 6 Infantry Bde, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1930-1934; Aide de Camp to HM King George V, 1932-1933; Maj Gen, 1933; placed on half pay, 1934-1935; awarded CB, 1935; General Officer Commanding 2 Div, Aldershot, 1935-1937; Head of British Military Delegation to observe Red Army manoeuvres, Minsk, USSR, 1936; General Officer Commanding, Palestine and Transjordan, 1937-1938; Lt Gen, 1938; General Officer Commanding in Chief Southern Command, 1938-1939; Lees Knowles Lecturer, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, 1939; created KCB, 1939; Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, 1939-1941; Gen, 1940; appointed GCB, 1941; Commander-in-Chief, India, 1941-1943; Aide de Camp General to HM King George VI, 1941-1943; Supreme Allied Commander, South West Pacific, ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) Command, 1942; FM, 1943; appointed GCSI and GCIE, and created Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and of Winchester, 1943; Privy Councillor, 1943; Viceroy and Governor General of India, 1943-1947; Chancellor of Aberdeen University, 1945-1950; Honorary Col, The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), 1946-1950; created 1st Earl Wavell, 1947; High Steward of Colchester, Essex, 1947-1950; Constable of the Tower of London, 1948-1950; Lord Lieutenant of the County of London, 1949; Governor, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, 1949-1950; died 1950.
Publications: Tsar Nicholas II by Andrei Georgievich Elchaninov, translated by Archibald Percival Wavell (Hugh Rees, London, 1913); The Palestine campaigns (Constable, London, 1928); Allenby: a study in greatness (Harrap, London, 1940); Generals and Generalship. The Lees Knowles Lectures delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1939 (The Times, London, 1941); Allenby in Egypt (Harrap, London, 1943); The war in the Far East. Address...at a meeting of the Study Committees of the Empire Parliamentary Association...1943 (Printed for private circulation, London, 1943); Other men's flowers. An anthology of poetry compiled by A P Wavell (Jonathan Cape, London, 1944); Allenby: soldier and statesman (Harrap, London, 1946); Speaking Generally. Broadcasts, orders and addresses in time of war, 1939-1943 (Macmillan, London, 1946); The good soldier (Macmillan, London, 1948); Speeches by Earl Wavell. From 26th October 1943 to 21st March 1947 (New Delhi, India, 1948); The triangle of forces in civil leadership (WalkerTrust Lectures on Leadership, Oxford University Press, London, 1948); Minerva's owl or education in the Army (Haldane Memorial Lecture, London, 1948); Arms and the man [Presidential address delivered to the Virgil Society, 1948] (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1949); National and international history (Stevenson Memorial Lecture, Oxford University Press, London, 1949); Soldiers and soldiering, or Epithets of war, compiled by Maj Archibald John Arthur Wavell, 2nd Earl Wavell (Jonathan Cape, London, 1953).
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