Lieutenant General Sir Wellesley Douglas Studholme Brownrigg KCB DSO (21 April 1886 – 7 February 1946) was a senior British Army officer who became Military Secretary.

Military career

Brownrigg was educated at Mulgrave Castle and later entered and then graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, the Sherwood Foresters in 1905. He became adjutant of his regiment in 1910. He served in the First World War in the 13th Division and fought at Gallipoli in 1915 and then in Mesopotamia during the remaining years of the war. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1916. He ended the war in 1918 as a lieutenant colonel, and had also been mentioned in dispatches six times. After the War he became deputy assistant adjutant general at the War Office and, after attending the Staff College, Camberley, from 1920 to 1921, then became an instructor at the Royal Military College Sandhurst. He returned to the War Office as a general service officer in 1923 and became assistant adjutant and quartermaster general for the Shanghai Defence Force in China in 1927. He was placed in charge of Administration for the North China Command in 1928. He was promoted to major general in March 1931, shortly after being placed on half-pay. He was appointed commander of the 159th (Welsh Border) Infantry Brigade in 1933 and general officer commanding 51st (Highland) Division in 1935. He became Military Secretary in 1938 and director general of the Territorial Army in 1939. He took part in World War II as adjutant-general of the British Expeditionary Force in 1939. He was subjected to some criticism for his erratic orders during the defence of Calais, and was involuntarily retired in 1940. He was a sector and zone commander for the Home Guard for the rest of the war. In late 1942, Brownrigg was employed as the military advisor for the British film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The film was about an officer called Major-General Wynne-Candy, whose fictional career was rather similar to Brownrigg's, as he had served with distinction in the First World War, was forcibly retired after Dunkirk and then had taken a senior role in the Home Guard.

Personal life

In 1919 he married Mona Jeffreys. Sir Douglas and Lady Brownrigg were keen dog breeders who imported two of the first Shih Tzus into the United Kingdom from China. His memoirs; Unexpected (a book of memories), were published in 1942.