Reginald Scoones

Major-General Sir Reginald Laurence Scoones, (18 December 1900 – October 1991) was a British Army officer who served during the Second World War and its aftermath. His older brother was General Sir Geoffry Scoones.

Early years

Reginald Scoones was born in 1900 in the parish of Heston, in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, where his father, Fitzroy Maurice Favre Scoones, was serving as a Major in The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). The family, which included his mother, Florence (born in New South Wales, Australia), and older brothers Geoffry Allen Percival Scoones, Thomas Cohn Scoones (who would be commissioned as a Second-Lieutenant from the ranks of the London Regiment and awarded the Military Cross during the First World War while serving as an officer in the Gordon Highlanders, being promoted to Lieutenant, and acting Captain while in command of a company and then while employed as an Adjutant at the Corps Infantry School from 23 September 1918, and as an Aide de Camp from 8 April 1919. He relinquished the last appointment and was returned to the establishment of his regiment at his substantive rank on 3 September 1919, was placed on the Half-Pay List due to ill health in 1922, and retired on retired pay, on account of ill-health caused by wounds, 6 January 1923, and was granted the rank of Captain) and Valentine Fitzmaurice Scoones (who would die aged 20 on the 18 August 1916, as a Second-Lieutenant, acting Captain, in the 3rd Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)), lived, at the time, at The Hermitage, on Sutton Lane in Heston. His father was posted to the Bermuda Garrison with the 3rd Battalion, arriving aboard the troopship Dominion at the start of December, 1903, along with Major CJ Stanton, Lieutenant F Moore, and Second-Lieutenant George Ernest Hawes of the same battalion (the remainder of the battalion of sixteen officers, one warrant officer, and 937 non-commissioned officers and other ranks under Lieutenant-Colonel Gaisford, arrived separately on the troopship SS Dunera, from Egypt). The battalion was first posted to Boaz Island His father was subsequently appointed Camp Commandant, Warwick Camp. A detachment of 112 men of the 3rd Battalion under Major Scoones departed from the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda aboard the troopship Kensington on 13 October 1905, for Aldershot, along with the 3rd Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, 3rd Company Royal Engineers, a detachment of 36 Company Royal Engineers, and various time-served and other personnel.

Reginald Scoones was educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was first commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers before joining the Royal Tank Regiment in 1923.