General Sir William Charles Giffard Heneker, KCB, KCMG, DSO (22 August 1867 – 24 May 1939) was a Canadian soldier who served with the British Army in West Africa, India, and then later on the Western Front during the First World War.

[2][3] During the first several decades of RMC's existence it was common practice for the War Office in London to offer commissions in the British Army to the best Canadian graduates.

[8] Between 1897 and 1906, Heneker served in the West African theatre, and participated in a variety of campaigns ranging from peacetime military engagement, to counterinsurgency, to major combat operations.

Heneker was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel 21 August 1903,[14] but received his substantive British Army rank of major on 16 February 1907.

Anxious to return to command, he was appointed to lead the 190th Infantry Brigade, Royal Naval Division, in France from 29 October to 8 December 1916.

[4][22] Heneker's next appointment was to the command of the 8th Division, which he led from 9 December 1916 until March 1919, in succession to Major General Havelock Hudson.

[25] Despite a tenacious defence during the 1918 German spring offensive, Major General Heneker's division was overrun at the First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.

Fortunately Sir Thomas William Glasgow's 13th Brigade (Australia), and Harold Elliott's 15th Brigade (Australia), managed to recapture the location on 25 April 1918, and this feat of arms was later described by Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps, as the turning point of the war.

[4] In 1921, Heneker served as commander of the Inter-Allied Commission of Management in Upper Silesia, stabilizing the borders between Germany and Poland.

"[38] Patrick Allason Holden was a Captain in the 3rd Cavalry of the Indian Army; he died 29 August 1942 as a Prisoner of War on Singapore.