Bill Carr

Being a fine horseman, it was perhaps inevitable that Bill Carr would serve in a cavalry regiment in the British Army. Educated at Eton and then Oxford University, he was commissioned into the 12th Lancers in 1922. They would become one of the pioneering cavalry regiments that become mechanised, and Carr was at the fore of this move to armoured divisions, which he led successfully in the Western Desert and North African campaigns during World War II. He served with distinction and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1941, and obtained a bar for it the following year. Carr was also made a Commander, Royal Victorian Order (CVO). He was eventually promoted to brigadier and was regarded as a courageous and outstanding leader.

Carr returned to England in 1943 and became commandant at the Sandhurst Military College before spending two years in the south-west Pacific as brigadier to British staff in the region. He retired from the Army in 1946, and in 1970 was appointed lieutenant of the Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard and was also a deputy lieutenant for Norfolk. One of Carr’s great passions was hunting, and on 27 January 1982 he died of a heart attack while riding with the hounds in Suffolk. To quote his death notice in The Times he died: “happily out hunting”.