Childs was born in Cornwall, the son of a solicitor. He initially entered the law himself, as an articled clerk to his father. He was also a Captain in the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. When the Second Boer War broke out he volunteered for overseas service, but was turned down. He decided to volunteer for regular service instead, intending to return to the law after the war, and in 1900 was commissioned into the regular DCLI, being immediately posted to the 1st Battalion in Dum Dum, India. Shortly afterwards, the battalion moved to Ceylon as a guard battalion for the Boer prisoner of war camp. After two years, the battalion was finally posted to South Africa, where Childs was appointed adjutant and quartermaster of the rest camp at Stellenbosch. There he came to the attention of ColonelNevil Macready, then Chief Staff Officer at Cape Colony, who appointed him garrison adjutant of Cape Town Castle. He was promoted Lieutenant in April 1904 and returned to England in 1905, where he became adjutant of his battalion. He transferred to the Royal Irish Regiment as a Captain in 1910. In February 1911 he was seconded to the War Office as a Staff Captain. In November 1910 he accompanied his old friend, Macready, by then Director of Personal Services, as his staff officer to Tonypandy in South Wales, where rioting had broken out. In February 1912 he was promoted to the brevet rank of Major. In April 1914 he was appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General at the War Office and in September 1914 he was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General with the British Expeditionary Force and promoted to the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and shortly afterwards to the temporary rank of Colonel. While with the BEF, he instituted court martial reforms that increased the remission of death sentences for deserters to 89 per cent of all those sentenced to death by military courts. In 1916 he returned to the War Office as Assistant Adjutant-General, mainly dealing with conscientious objectors, and later the same year was appointed Director of Personal Services, in charge of Army discipline. In September 1915 he was given the substantive rank of Major in the DCLI, in 1916 he became a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, in 1917 a Brevet Colonel, and in 1919 a Temporary Major-General. In 1919 he also became a Deputy Adjutant-General.
Episodes and reflections: being some records from the life of Major-General Sir Wyndham Childs, K.C.M.G., K.B.E., C.B., one time second lieut., 2nd Volunteer Battalion, the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, Cassell, 1930
John Bull's Book of Pitfalls, Pryor Publications, 1999,
