The seventh of ten children, Blamey was born on 24 January 1884 at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. He was the son of Richard Blamey, a farmer who had emigrated from Cornwall at the age of 16 in 1862, and his Australian-born wife, Margaret (née Murray).
He attended Wagga Wagga Superior Public School (now Wagga Wagga Public School), where he played Australian football, and was a keen member of the Army Cadet unit. He transferred to Wagga Wagga Grammar when he was 13, and was head cadet of its unit for two years.
Commissioned in the army in 1906, he entered the staff college at Quetta, India, in 1911, and later served on the Northwest Frontier of India. When World War I began, Blamey was transferred to England with the First Australian Division, served with distinction in the Gallipoli campaign (1915), was transferred to France, and in 1918 became chief of staff to Sir John Monash, commander of the Third Australian Division. At the close of World War I, he returned to Australia where, in 1920, he was appointed deputy chief of the Australian general staff. From 1922 to 1924 he was the Australian military representative in the British War Office, but returned to Australia in 1924 as the second chief of the general staff. In 1925 he became chief commissioner of police in the state of Victoria. Blamey was commander of the Tenth Infantry Brigade from 1926 to 1930 and of the Third Australian Division from 1931 to 1937. Blamey gave up the office of chief police commissioner in 1937. Blamey became commander in chief of the Australian Imperial Forces in the Middle East in 1940, and in 1941 commanded the Anzac forces in Greece under General Sir Henry M. Wilson. After the British evacuation of Greece, Blamey was next in command to Field Marshal Wavell, who was the commander of the British forces in the Middle East. In this capacity he attempted unsuccessfully to hold Crete. From 1942 to 1946 General Blamey was in command of all Allied land forces in Australia. Made a field marshal in 1950, he died in Melbourne on May 27, 19
Blamey is honoured in Australia in various ways, including a square named after him which is situated outside the Russell Offices headquarters of the Australian Defence Force and Department of Defence in the national capital, Canberra. A statue of Blamey stands in Kings Domain, Melbourne, on the corner of Government House Drive and Birdwood Avenue, opposite that of John Monash. It was sculptured from granite and bronze by Raymond B. Ewers and presented to the city in February 1960. Controversially, Blamey is mounted on a jeep instead of the traditional horse. Blamey Barracks at Kapooka, where the Army Recruit Training Centre is located, is also named in his honour, as is Blamey Street and Blamey Park in North Ryde, New South Wales. His papers are held in the Australian War Memorial, where his field marshal's baton is on display.
He had serious flaws in his character. Unwilling to admit his own faults and unremitting in the pursuit of personal enemies, Blamey was blunt and, on occasions, tactless. Perhaps the stories of his womanizing and drinking grew with the telling, but he never seemed to understand that a public figure cannot expect to keep his private life to himself. Possibly his greatest failing was that he did not appreciate the importance of public relations. Conversely, there was a sensitive side to Blamey's nature which few saw and he had interests beyond military and public affairs, such as his involvement in the early discussions to found the Australian National University.
In Melbourne, Blamey met Minnie Millard, the daughter of a Toorak stockbroker who was involved in the Methodist Church there. They were married at her home on 8 September 1909. His first child was born on 29 June 1910, and named Charles Middleton after a friend of Blamey's who had died in a shooting accident; but the boy was always called Dolf by his family. A second child, a boy named Thomas, was born four years later.
