Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

15/08/1914

Date of Discharge

20/05/1919

Place of Enlistment

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

24/12/1868

Place of Birth

Edinburgh, Scotland

Address (at enlistment)

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

School(s) Attended

United Services College, Westward Ho! (Devon, England)

Occupation

Soldier

Next of Kin

Katherine Sinclair-Maclagan (wife), London, England

Final Rank

Major General

Final Unit

4 Infantry Division AIF

Mentioned in Despatches (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 103, 29 June 1917)
Order of the White Eagle, 3rd Class (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 116, 25 July 1917)
Companion of the Order of the Bath (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 116, 25 July 1917)
American Distinguished Service Medal (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 119, 17 October 1919)
Croix de Guerre, France (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 119, 17 October 1919)
Croix de Guerre Avec Palme, France (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 135, 11 December 1919)

Sinclair-Maclagan was the son of a banker and attended school at Westward Ho! in Devon with Rudyard Kipling. He appears in Kipling's schoolboy memoir 'Stalky & Co.'. After being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Border Regiment in 1889, Sinclair-Maclagan served in India and the Boer War. He was posted to Australia in 1901 and married in Sydney the following year, before resuming his career in England in 1904. In 1910 William Bridges recruited him as Director of Drill at the Royal Military College, Duntroon and he commenced duty in January 1911. When Bridges formed the AIF he chose Sinclair-Maclagan to command the 3rd Infantry Brigade and it was men from this brigade who were the first Australians to land on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Sinclair-Maclagan himself landed with the second wave of men and immediately began directing operations. Maclagan Ridge on Gallipoli is named after him. He commanded the 3rd Brigade at Pozieres and Flers in France until he was appointed to command the AIF depots in England in November 1916. He was appointed to command the 4th Division of the AIF in July 1917 with the rank of Major-General and led the Division for the remainder of the war including at Polygon Wood, Dernancourt, Hamel and the Hindenburg Line. After his appointment was terminated in May 1919, Sinclair-Maclagan rejoined the British Army retaining his rank of Major-General. He retired in 1925 and died at Dundee, Scotland on 24 November 1948.

Description - height 5 feet 9¾ inches, weight 168 pounds, chest 35½ -38 inches, Church of England.

Charles Bean, 'Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18'
C.D. Coulthard-Clark, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1986'
'Sinclair-Maclagan, Ewen George (1868-1948)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sinclair-maclagan-ewen-george-8438/text14791, accessed online 23 July 2014 (entry by A.J. Hill)
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Honour Guard at the Canberra Commencement Ceremony', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
AWM Collections Record : A01474, E00062, H12187, J05038
AWM Honours & Awards
AWM First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls