Quick Facts
Biography
General Sir Richard Wakefield Goodbody GCB, KBE, DSO (12 April 1903 – 29 April 1981) was a senior British Army officer and a former Adjutant-General to the Forces.
Military career
Educated at Rugby School and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Richard Goodbody was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1923. He was posted to the Royal Horse Artillery in 1927. He served in World War II commanding 2nd Armoured Brigade from 1943 to 1946 and being awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1943.
In 1946 he was appointed Commander, Royal Artillery in 7th Armoured Division and in 1947 he became Commander of 15 Infantry Brigade, a post he held until 1949. He was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Northern Command in 1957 and Adjutant General in 1960: he retired from the British Army in 1963. In the late 1950s Goodbody chaired a Committee investigating a shortage of entrants to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
He was also Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery from 1957 to 1968 and Colonel Commandant of the Royal Horse Artillery from 1960 to 1968.
He was ADC General to the Queen from 1961 to 1963. He lived in Blandford Forum, Dorset.
He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1953 and upgraded to a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1963. He was also appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1958.