John Senior
British Army officer
Major John Wilson Senior, MBE, TD, DL, mobilised on 27 December 2001, Senior was the first member of the British Territorial Army to be deployed on operational service to Afghanistan (post 11 September 2001). He is also the founder of Heroes Welcome UK, a national scheme to encourage local communities to show their open support to British and other UK-based military personnel.
Personal life
Senior was born in 1960 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and educated at Bilton Grange, Millfield and Menlo College, San Francisco.
In 1963 the Senior family survived the Lakonia disaster, on the evening of 22 December, the Greek cruise liner TSMS Lakonia (formerly the Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt ‘JVO’) caught fire and was abandoned in mid Atlantic (later sinking under tow to Gibraltar), of the 1022 souls on board, 95 passengers and 33 crew members lost their lives, many due to the swamping of the ship's life boats. At the subsequent Board of Inquiry the Lakonia's seaworthiness and the behaviour of the Captain and crew were severely criticised, leading to criminal charges being brought. As a result of the disaster a thorough review of maritime safety law was undertaken leading to significant changes in the rules allowing ships to sail from port, if deemed unfit for sea.
During his Millfield school career, Senior was better known for challenging authority rather than academic achievement, a rugby player and horseman, Senior was more often found on the polo, hunting and sports fields rather than in the classroom. In June 1977 the Daily Mail reported on the scandal of a streaking incident at Millfield School, Somerset. Senior and a group of friends had been intercepted by elements of the local constabulary whilst streaking back to their boarding house after a late night visit to a local pub. Senior was caught and arrested holding down a barbed wire fence whilst in a state of undress, his compatriots successfully escaped but were later identified when they reported to the Matron's office requiring first aid to lacerations of their abdomen and upper thigh areas.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6257301. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001, 1960, 1963 and 1022.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Senior” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.