Major-General Sir George Arthur French, KCMG (19 June 1841 – 7 July 1921) served as the first Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, from October 18, 1873, to July 21, 1876. George Arthur French was born at Roscommon, Ireland. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Woolwich and commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1860. In 1871, at the request of the Canadian government, he was sent to Canada as a military inspector, eventually becoming head of the School of Gunnery at Kingston, Ontario.