Desmond Langley

Major-General Sir Henry Desmond Allen Langley KCVO MBE (16 May 1930 – 14 February 2008) was Major-General Commanding the Household Division and General Officer Commanding London District.

Military career
Educated at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Langley was commissioned into the Life Guards in 1949. He was posted to Egypt and then to Libya. He then served with HQ Far East Land Forces during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation in the early 1960s. He later became Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Regiment and Silver Stick to The Queen. In 1976 he was appointed Commander of 4th Guards Armoured Brigade and in 1978 he became a Brigadier on the General Staff at UK Land Forces.

He became Major-General Commanding the Household Division and General Officer Commanding London District in 1979 organising, inter alia, the military ceremony for the marriage of the Prince Charles and Princess Diana. His final appointment was as Commander of British Forces in Cyprus in 1983. He retired in 1988.

In retirement he was Governor of Bermuda from 1988 to 1992.

Family
In 1950 he married Felicity (Flick) Oliphant and they went on to have a son and a daughter.