Brigadier Frank Montrésor Montrésor MC (born Frank Montrésor Rideout, changed by deed poll in 1916) was the son of Major-General Rideout. He changed his name upon the birth of a son, the Montresor name was in danger of dying out. He also did not get on well with his father. He was known to his friends as Joe.
At Malvern he won the Heywood Exhibition and was, unsurprisingly, destined for the Army. He went to the RMA Woolwich, or ‘the Shop’ before being commissioned into the Gunners in 1904.
He was Adjutant RGA in Cape Town from 1910 to 1913 before the outbreak of the Great War. He served in France and Flanders with 3rd Siege Battery September 1914, getting first promoted in October and in November 1914 he won the MC for despite ‘though wounded continued to fire the section and only went to hospital in the evening’ at Hooge near Ypres. There is a family story of him having been placed in the Mortuary because he was believed to have been killed, but waking up, causing the mortuary attendant to faint.
In February 1915 he and a volunteer, Gunner Wilcox, saved the life of a wounded French officer caught in no-mans-land under heavy German bombardment (see article below, which retells the incident focusing on Wilcox). He received a Mention.
He served at GSO 3, Siege Train from July 1915 until May 1916, Brigade Major, Heavy Artillery, III Army Corps, and ended the War as a Major, getting winded a second time at Arras.
He remained in the Army after the War, becoming Adjutant of the Kent Artillary, Rochester. He went to Staff College between 1922 and 1924 before being posted to intelligence duties from 1924 to 1928, Singapore, and then Gibraltar where in 1933 he was responsible for replacing the guns that his ancestor put in.
Promoted Lt Colonel in 1933 he went to Staff College, and ending up a Brigadier on the eve of the next war, in which he was Chief Observer, Plymouth.
He was a keen philatelist and in 1951 he was elected President of the Junior Philatelic Society.
He was initiated into Military Jubilee Lodge No 2195, and also joined a Scottish lodge, Cape Town Kilwinning No 986.
