Arthur Edward Potts

Who was Arthur Edward Potts?

Arthur Edward Potts CBE, ED was a Canadian general officer, active in World War II.

Potts attended George Heriot's School in Edinburgh and subsequently studied at the University of Edinburgh and Cornell University. He worked as instructor at Ames College in Iowa.

In 1915, he left Ames College to enlist in Second Universities Company at McGill University and was attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry as a private. This unit was sent to France where Potts fought in the trenches and got wounded. In September 1916, he was appointed lieutenant. At the end of 1917, Potts was sent to the education office, to give lectures to soldiers about agriculture, and soon he joined his battalion again. After being wounded on 7 September, he was sent to England for convalescence. Potts was still there when the war ended.

After the war, Potts joined the University of Saskatchewan as head of the dairy department. Besides his normal work as "Professor of Dairying", he also took over the university’s officer training corps and reorganized and retrained it.