Hugh Montague Trenchard 1st Viscount Trenchard

Hugh Montague Trenchard Trenchard, 1st Viscount 1873-1956, British air marshal. He entered the army in 1893 and served in the South African War. During World War I he commanded the Royal Flying Corps. As chief of air staff (1918, 1919-29), Trenchard shaped the offensive air strategy (to the neglect of air defense) that the Royal Air Force adhered to into World War II. He was (1931-35) commissioner of the London police force and was created a peer in 1936.

Bibliography: See biography by A. Boyle (1962).

Trenchard, Hugh Montague, 1st Viscount Trenchard of Wolfeton (b. 3 Feb. 1873, d. 10 Feb. 1956). Founder of the Royal Air Force Born in Taunton, Somerset, he served in the army in the South African (Boer) War, and, after service in Nigeria, joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1913. From 1915, he commanded the RFC on the Western Front, and towards the end of the war, developed the use of aeroplanes as bombers. The RFC had been part of the army, but in April 1918 he saw it created into a separate Royal Air Force (RAF). As Chief of Air Staff in 1919–29, he developed the RAF as a flexible, cost-effective alternative to the army, as a way of policing the Empire. In 1927 he became the first air marshal. Later, in 1932–5, as commissioner of police, he reorganized the metropolitan police force, establishing a college and a forensic laboratory at Hendon.

Trenchard, Hugh Montague, 1st Viscount of Wolfeton (1873–1956) British Marshal of the RAF. He served in the army (1893–1912) before training as a pilot and becoming head of the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. As Chief of Staff (1918) then First Marshal (1927) of the RAF he built the force into the third major element of the British armed services. He was also Metropolitan Police Commissioner from 1931 to 1935.