NEVILL, Major-General Cosmo Alexander Richard

1907 - 2002

Cosmo Alexander Richard Nevill was born at Headley, Hampshire on 14 July 1907, only child of Capt. Cosmo Charles Richard Nevill (21 January 1873-19 February 1940), an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was born in Trieste, Italy, and his wife Geraldine Mary née Lee-Norman (4 January 1875-23 January 1964), who was born in Dublin and died at Sproughton, Suffolk, and they married at Ardee, co. Louth, Ireland in 1906. Young Cosmo was educated at Harrow School and the Royal Military College Sandhurst where he won both the Sword of Honour and King's Medal. In 1927 commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers serving on Lord Wavell's staff in New Delhi in India from 1932. He married St Paul's Knightsbridge, London on 16 July 1934, Grania Goodliffe, daughter of Major & Mrs Guy Goodliffe of Birdstown, co. Donegal, and they had a son and a daughter. During the Second World War he fought in Burma and then took part in the Normandy landings as Commanding Officer of 2 Battalion Devonshire Regiment. His battalion captured the Longues-sur-Mer battery and took 120 prisoners earning him the D.S.O. After the War he served on the General Staff of the Military Staff Committee at the United Nations in New York after which in 1950 he became Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers in Germany, in 1951 Commander of 6th Infantry Brigade at Munster and Wuppertal and in 1954 Commandant of the School of Infantry at Warminster, during which time awarded a Commander of the Order of Bath and a CBE. His last appointment was in 1956 as General Officer Commanding 2nd Infantry Division at Hilden and, following a heart attack, he retired in 1960. In 1958 he had moved to Sudbury, Suffolk and in his retirement became a respected oil painter with his landscapes having several exhibitions at the Malcolm Innes Gallery in London also exhibiting in Paris. He served on the West Suffolk County Council and was an honorary lay canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral and made a freeman of the City of London. Cosmo Alexander Richard Nevill lived at Holt, School Green, Sudbury, Suffolk and died at Colchester Hospital, Essex on 19 September 2002.

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Works by This Artist