Brigadier General Cecil Henry Foott (16 January 1876 – 27 June 1942) was a senior Australian Army officer who served as Chief Engineer of the Australian Corps in the First World War. He was educated as an engineer and, serving with distinction in senior staff and engineering positions through the First World War, was seven times mentioned in despatches. Early life and career Cecil Henry Foott was born on 16 January 1876 at Bourke, New South Wales, the son of a station owner, Thomas Wade Foott and his wife, the poet Mary Hannay (née Black). He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and Toowoomba Grammar School, and qualified as a mechanical engineer. In 1895, Foott was commissioned into the Queensland Militia Garrison Artillery as a second lieutenant. The following September he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Permanent Military Forces, in the Queensland Artillery. In July 1901 he was promoted to captain in the Royal Australian Artillery. In 1902 Foott transferred to the Royal Australian Engineers. After a year of training in England in 1908, he became Chief Engineer in Victoria in 1909. He was promoted to major on 1 August 1909, served as Director of Works from 1910 to 1911 and then as Director of Engineers from 1911–12. In 1912–13 he attended the Staff College, Camberley in England, and was still on duty in the England on the staff of Southern Command when the war broke out. First World War Being one of only six staff college graduates in the Army, this made Foott in demand for staff duties and on the outbreak of the First World War Major General William Bridges immediately requested him for the 1st Division staff as Deputy Assistant Adjutant General. This part of the division staff was concerned with personnel administration. Foott joined the staff in Egypt in January 1915. Foott was determined that the men should always be supplied properly, and made a point of letting the officers of the Lines of Communication, living palatially on board the Aragon, know exactly what he thought of them whenever they placed obstacles in his way. He remained in the post for two years. In France he found the logistics far more complex, but much better organised, and increasingly free of shortages, he was able to deliver there a quality of service that he had never been able to achieve at Gallipoli. On 23 July