John Charles Oakes Marriott

Marriott entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Northamptonshire Regiment in 1914.[3] He served in the First World War as a Staff Captain with the 7th Infantry Brigade in France and then as a General Staff Officer (GSO) with the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division.[3] Marriott won both the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and Military Cross,[4][5] as well as the French Croix de guerre.

He remained in the army after the war and became a GSO to the military attaché in Washington, D.C..[3] He transferred to the Scots Guards in 1920.[3] He was made Deputy Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General for London District in 1933.[3] Appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 1935 and elevated to Commander in 1937,[6][7] Marriott was made Commanding Officer (CO) of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards in 1938.[3]

He served in the Second World War, initially in the Middle East and from 1940 as CO of the 21st Infantry Brigade. From October 1940 he commanded the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 5th Indian Infantry Division, in the East African Campaign for which he received a Bar to his DSO.[3][8] In October 1941, on return to the Western Desert, he was placed in command of the 22nd Guards Brigade, which was renamed successively 200th Guards Brigade and 201st Guards Motor Brigade. He avoided capture when the brigade was forced to surrender when Tobruk was captured during the Battle of Gazala on 20 June 1942 by German and Italian forces. He returned to the United Kingdom and from September 1942 to December 1943 he took command of the 32nd Guards Brigade. He was Deputy Director of Infantry at the War Office from 1943.[3]

After the war he became General Officer Commanding (GOC) Guards Division in Germany in 1945 and Major-General commanding the Brigade of Guards and GOC London District in 1947; he retired from the army in 1950.[3]

The Marriott family grave in Brookwood Cemetery in 2018

In 1920 he married Maud (Momo) Emily Wolff Kahn (1897-1960), the daughter of Otto Hermann Kahn, investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. They had one child, John Oakes Marriott (1921-2007) who never married. The three are buried together in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

• Marriott, John Charles Oakes (1931). Admiral of New England: The exploits of John Smith: his London epitaph. Times Pub. Co. OCLC 28725928.

• Ammentorp, Steen. "Generals of World War II". Retrieved 31 July 2007.
• Brett-James, Antony (1951). Ball of fire – The Fifth Indian Division in the Second World War. Gale & Polden. pp. 481 pages.
• Mackenzie, Compton (1951). Eastern Epic. Chatto & Windus, London. pp. 623 pages.
• Marriott, Sir John (1946). Memories of Four-Score Years: The Autobiography of Sir John Marriott. London: Blackie.
• "Orders of Battle.com". Retrieved 31 July 2007.