Harry Fulton

Who is Harry Fulton?

Brigadier-General Harry Townsend Fulton CMG, DSO was a British Army officer who served with the New Zealand Military Forces during the Second Boer War and First World War.

Born in 1869 in Dalhousie, India, Fulton moved with his family to New Zealand as a child. Commissioned as an officer in the British Army in 1892, he was seconded to the Indian Army and served on the Northwest Frontier. In New Zealand on sick leave when the Second Boer War began, he volunteered for the New Zealand contingents being raised for service in South Africa and was wounded during operations in the northern Transvaal.

On leave in New Zealand when the First World War broke out, Fulton again offered his services to the New Zealand government in aid of the war effort. He was part of the Samoa Expeditionary Force and later served on the Western Front with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He led the New Zealand Rifle Brigade during the Somme Offensive and the Battle of Messines. He died in 1918 as a result of wounds received when his headquarters was shelled by artillery. He was the third and last brigadier-general to be killed on active service with the NZEF during the war.