Archibald Jack

Who was Archibald Jack?

Brigadier-General Archibald Jack CB CMG CBE was a New Zealand-born railway engineer and British Army officer.

Jack was educated at Otago Boys' High School and began his career in the New Zealand Department of Public Works in 1893. He was commissioned into the 9th Battalion, New Zealand Regiment on the outbreak of the Second Boer War and served in South Africa. The war over, he returned to civilian life, working for the Central South African Railways from 1902 to 1908, the Tientsin-Pakow Railway in China from 1909 to 1910, and on the railways of Argentina from 1911 to 1916.

In 1916 he sailed to Britain, was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1917 as a Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel and served in Romania. In 1918 he was promoted Colonel and was given command of the British Railway Mission on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia, responsible for co-ordinating the operation of the railway during the Russian Civil War. He was promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier-General in 1919. He was mentioned in dispatches three times and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1919, and Companion of the Order of the Bath in the Siberian War Honours of January 1920.