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Lionel Frederic Ellis CVO CBE DSO Military Cross (13 May 1885 – 19 October 1970) was a British Army officer and Military history, author of three volumes of the official History of the Second World War.
Between the two World Wars, he was General Secretary of the National Council of Social Service (1919–1937) and then Secretary of the National Fitness Council (1937–1939). In the 1950s he was an Associate Warden of Toynbee Hall.
In 1919 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry and devotion to duty, in the advance south of Bavay in the days before the Armistice of 11 November 1918. The medal's citation reads:
He returned to civilian life and became the first General Secretary of the new National Council of Social Service, a position he held from 1919 to 1937, then the first Secretary of the new National Fitness Council, 1937 to 1939, working with Lord Aberdare, the first chairman.Andrzej Olechnowicz, Working-class Housing in England Between the Wars: The Becontree Estate, (Clarendon Press, 1937), p. 142, footnote 38 In the 1930 Birthday Honours, Ellis was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services in connection with the Coalfields Distress Fund" and in 1937 a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The London Gazette (Supplement) dated 3 June 1930, p. 3481 The London Gazette (Supplement) dated 29 January 1937, p. 694
On 18 September 1939, shortly after the beginning of the Second World War, Ellis returned to the Welsh Guards and was later appointed as an official historian, contributing three volumes to the History of the Second World War. The London Gazette (Supplement) dated 10 October 1939, p 6853 After the war, he was an Associate Warden of Toynbee Hall. Social Service: A Quarterly Review, Volumes 27-28 (1953), p. 1: "For the Well-Being of Mankind, Lionel F. Ellis, c.v.o., c.b.e., d.s.o. Associate Warden, Toynbee Hall".
His The War in France and Flanders (1954) begins with the Phoney War of 1939–1940 and deals with the failed attempts of the British Expeditionary Force to defend Belgium and France from the German invasion of May and June 1940. It ends with the confusion of the Belgian surrender, the British failure to defend the Somme and the decision to evacuate British forces from Dunkirk. His later volumes dealt with the Normandy Campaign and the defeat of Germany.
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