Recruitment in the British Army from families with a military tradition. (This contrasted with the Navy, whose officers were more often from a middle-class background.) The second son of King George III, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, did much to improve the standard of officer recruitment from his position as Commander in Chief of the Army (from 1795 to 1809, then from 1811 to 1827). The sale of commissions, finally abolished in the Cardwell reforms in 1868–1874, and the further Childers Reforms. In spite of its abolition, the status of an officer being from a privileged background and that of another rank being
Arthur Roberts (British Army officer) Arthur Roberts (British Army officer) Brigadier General Arthur Colin Roberts CMG DSO (1870-1917) was a senior British Army officer during the First World War. Born in 1870, Arthur Roberts was educated at Bedford School. He received his first commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers in 1890, and served during the Second Boer War, taking part in operations in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony. He served with the Royal West African Frontier Force, between 1902 and 1904, and was promoted to the rank of Major in 1907. He served during the First World