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Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet

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General
Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet
GCB, GCMG, DSO, MVO
Formal head and shoulders portrait of a man in his early 60s.
Sir Charles Fergusson, circa 1926
3rd Governor-General of New Zealand
In office
13 December 1924 – 8 February 1930
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterWilliam Massey
Francis Bell
Gordon Coates
Joseph Ward
Preceded byThe Viscount Jellicoe
Succeeded byThe Lord Bledisloe
Personal details
Born(1865-01-17)17 January 1865
Died20 February 1951(1951-02-20) (aged 86)
Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland
NationalityBritish
SpouseAlice Mary Boyle
RelationsSir James Fergusson, 6th Baronet (father)
ChildrenSir James Fergusson, 8th Baronet
Bernard Fergusson, Baron Ballantrae
Military service
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Branch/serviceBritish Army
Years of service1883–1922
RankGeneral
UnitGrenadier Guards
CommandsXVII Corps
II Corps
9th (Scottish) Division
5th Division
3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards
Omdurman District
15th Sudanese Regiment
Battles/warsMahdist War
First World War
AwardsKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath[1]
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George[2]
Distinguished Service Order
Member of the Royal Victorian Order [3]
Mentioned in dispatches

General Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet, GCB, GCMG, DSO, MVO (17 January 1865 – 20 February 1951) was a British Army officer and the third Governor-General of New Zealand, in office from 1924 to 1930.

Early life and military career

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Fergusson was the son of Sir James Fergusson, 6th Baronet, the 6th Governor of New Zealand and Lady Edith Christian Ramsay, daughter of James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie. He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, before being commissioned as a subaltern, with the rank of lieutenant, into the Grenadier Guards in November 1883.[4][5]

Promoted to captain in October 1895,[6] and major in November 1898,[7] he served in the Sudan from 1896 to 1898, becoming commanding officer (CO) of the 15th Sudanese Regiment in 1899 and commander of the Omdurman District in 1900.[5]

He was made adjutant general of the Egyptian Army in early 1901 and commanding officer (CO) of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards in 1904 before being placed on half-pay in July 1907.[8] He was promoted to substantive colonel in October,[9] and was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general to be brigadier general, general staff (BGGS) of Irish Command, in succession to Colonel Frederick Hammersley.[5][10] After being promoted to major-general in September 1908,[11] at the very young age (in peacetime) of just 43, he was appointed an inspector of infantry in April 1909.[12]

In February 1913 he succeeded Major General William Pitcairn Campbell as general officer commanding (GOC) of the 5th Division,[13] then stationed in Ireland. In this capacity he played a key role during the Curragh incident the following year, ensuring his officers obeyed orders.[14]

Portrait of Fergusson in uniform, seated with his hands folded in his lap.

He took the 5th Division to France in August 1914 shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.[14] He remained in command of the division during all of its early battles on the Western Front until he was suddenly removed from his command on 18 October, "ostensibly because he was being promoted to Lieutenant-General", with Major General Thomas Morland taking over.[15] The real reason, however, appears to be that Field Marshal Sir John French, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front, wanted Fergusson's removal, not believing that the latter had it in him to successfully command a division, despite the fact that Fergusson had been doing so for the past two months.[16]

Fergusson, promoted to lieutenant general,[17] then returned to the United Kingdom and briefly took command of the 9th (Scottish) Division, a newly created Kitchener's Army formation, from October to December 1914.[18] Returning to France, he commanded II Corps of the BEF from January 1915 onwards. In February 1915 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), "in connection with Operations in the Field".[19] In May 1916 he was moved on to take over XVII Corps, which he led until the end of the war, caused by the armistice with Germany, in November 1918.[14]

After the war Fergusson, promoted to the rank of full general in July 1921,[20] was a military governor of Cologne before he retired from the army in 1922.[5]

Governor-General of New Zealand

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A year after an unsuccessful attempt to enter parliament through the South Ayrshire constituency in the 1923 general election,[21] Fergusson was appointed Governor-General of New Zealand and served until 1930.[5] His father, Sir James Fergusson, had served as a Governor of New Zealand, and his son Lord Ballantrae was the tenth and last British-appointed governor-general.

On 20 June 1929 Fergusson was involved in a railway accident, following the 1929 Murchison earthquake. Attached to the rear of a train leaving the National Dairy Show at Palmerston North with 200 passengers on board, the Viceregal carriage contained the Governor-General and his wife and other members of the Viceregal party. The train hit a slip between Paekākāriki and Pukerua Bay, with the locomotive falling down a steep bank and injuring the driver. The first three carriages of the train also left the rails, but the Viceregal carriage remained on the tracks, and Fergusson and his party suffered only minor cuts and bruises.[22]

Marriage and family

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Fergusson married Lady Alice Mary Boyle on 18 July 1901. She was a daughter of David Boyle, 7th Earl of Glasgow. They had five children:

Freemasonry

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Fergusson was a Freemason. During his term as governor-general, he was also Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New Zealand.[23]

Later life

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After his term in New Zealand, Fergusson became chairman of the West Indies Closer Union Commission and was Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire from 1937 until his death on 20 February 1951.

Arms

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Coat of arms of Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet
Notes
The arms of Charles Fergusson consist of:[24]
Crest
A bee on a thistle Proper.
Escutcheon
Quarterly: 1st grandquarter Azure, a buckle Argent between three boars' heads couped Or armed and langued gules (Fergusson of Kilkerran) 2nd grandquarter, counterquartered; 1st and 4th Argent, an eagle displayed Sable beaked and membered Gules (Ramsay); 2nd and 3rd Gules, a chevron between three fleurs de lis Or (Broun of Colston): 3rd grandquarter, counterquartered; 1st and 4th Or, a lion rampant couped at all joints Gules within a double tressure flory counter flory Azure (Maitland); 2nd and 3rd Argent, a shakefork Sable (Cunningham of Glencairn): 4th grandquarter Or, on a saltire Azure nine lozenges of the first, on a bordure of the second eight mullets and as many boars' heads erased alternately Argent (Dalrymple of New Hailes).
Motto
Dulcius ex asperis (All the sweeter for having undergone bitterness); on compartment: Ut prosim aliis (May I profit others)

References

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  1. ^ "No. 29074". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 February 1915. p. 1686.
  2. ^ "No. 13186". The Edinburgh Gazette. 1 January 1918. p. 9.
  3. ^ "No. 27927". The London Gazette. 29 June 1906. p. 4465.
  4. ^ "No. 25285". The London Gazette. 6 November 1883. p. 5243.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Survey of the Papers of Senior UK Defence Personnel, 1900–1975 – FERGUSSON, Sir Charles, (1865–1951), 7th Baronet, General". Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014.
  6. ^ "No. 26677". The London Gazette. 5 November 1895. p. 5984.
  7. ^ "No. 27032". The London Gazette. 13 December 1898. p. 8047.
  8. ^ "No. 28042". The London Gazette. 19 July 1907. p. 4942.
  9. ^ "No. 28067". The London Gazette. 8 October 1907. p. 6747.
  10. ^ "No. 28067". The London Gazette. 8 October 1907. p. 6745.
  11. ^ "No. 28179". The London Gazette. 22 September 1908. p. 6861.
  12. ^ "No. 28241". The London Gazette. 13 April 1909. p. 2920.
  13. ^ "No. 28689". The London Gazette. 11 February 1913. p. 1057.
  14. ^ a b c "Fergusson, Sir Charles, of Kilkerran, seventh baronet (1865–1951), army officer and administrator". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33111. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. ^ Beckett, Ian (16 December 2013). Ypres: The First Battle 1914. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-86534-6.
  16. ^ Beckett, Ian (16 December 2013). Ypres: The First Battle 1914. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-86534-6.
  17. ^ "No. 28881". The London Gazette. 28 August 1914. p. 6798.
  18. ^ "Army Commands" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2015.
  19. ^ "No. 29074". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 February 1915. p. 1686.
  20. ^ "No. 32401". The London Gazette (Supplement). 22 February 1921. p. 5915.
  21. ^ McLintock, A. H., ed. (23 April 2009) [First published in 1966]. "Fergusson, General Sir Charles, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., LL.D. (Glasgow), Bt.". An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Ministry for Culture and Heritage / Te Manatū Taonga. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  22. ^ Gavin McLean (October 2006), The Governors, New Zealand Governors and Governors-General, Otago University Press, ISBN 978-1-877372-25-4
  23. ^ "Vice Regal Grand Masters – Who and Why?". Archived from the original on 9 April 2013.
  24. ^ Burke, Sir Bernard; Burke, Ashworth P. (1909). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage and Companionage. London : Harrison & Sons. pp. 792–793, FERGUSSON. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet.
Military offices
Preceded by GOC 5th Division
1913–1914 		Succeeded by
Preceded by GOC 9th (Scottish) Division
October–December 1914 		Succeeded by
Preceded by GOC II Corps
1915–1916 		Succeeded by
Preceded by GOC XVII Corps
1916–1918 		Post disbanded
Government offices
Preceded by Governor-General of New Zealand
1924–1930 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire
1937–1951 		Succeeded by
Baronetage of Nova Scotia
Preceded by Baronet
(of Kilkerran)
1907–1951 		Succeeded by
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