Quick Facts
Biography
Major General Arthur Alec Goschen CB DSO** DL (6 January 1880 – 28 June 1975) was a British Army officer who served as an Area Commander during the Second World War.
Family and education
Goschen was born in London, the youngest child of Henry Goschen (1837–1932) and Augusta Eleanor Shakerley, niece of Sir Charles Shakerley, 1st Baronet. Their father Henry Goschen was the younger brother of George Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen.
Their grandfather was prominent publisher and printer Georg Joachim Göschen of Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony. His third son Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Göschen (1793–1866) came to England in 1814 and the next year co-founded the merchant banking firm Frühling & Göschen, of Leipzig and London. He married an English woman and had several children, including George, Henry and Sir Edward Goschen.
His elder brother was Sir Harry Goschen, 1st Baronet. He was educated at Eton College.
Military career
In 1899, Goschen was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Artillery. He saw active service in the Second Boer War, and in November 1900 was promoted lieutenant and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He later served in the First World War as a Brigade Major for the Home Forces and in France. After instructing at the Senior Officer School and then at the Staff College, Quetta, in India, he was appointed Garrison Commander and Commandant at the Royal Artillery Depot at Woolwich in 1929, Brigadier Royal Artillery at Aldershot Command in 1931, and Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1934. He retired in 1938 but was recalled as an Area Commander for the Chatham Area in 1939 at the start of the Second World War, before retiring again in 1941.
In retirement he became a Deputy Lieutenant for Gloucestershire.
Family
In 1908 Goschen married Marjorie Mary Blacker; they had two sons and three daughters. Both their sons were in the military: Brigadier Geoffrey William Goschen DSO MC* (1911–88), who married Mary, daughter of Lt. Col. Ernest Morrison-Bell; and Captain John Arthur Goschen MC* (1918–41), who was killed in action in the Siege of Tobruk.