Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet

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.

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 awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his service in Sudan in 1898,^[8] and was awarded the Order of the Medjidieh (third class) in 1899.^[9]

He was made adjutant general of the Egyptian Army in early 1901 and commanding officer (CO) of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards in 1904^[10] and appointed a Member (4th class) (MVO) of the Royal Victorian Order in 1906^[11] before being placed on half-pay in July 1907.^[12] He was promoted to substantive colonel in October,^[13] and was promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general to be brigadier general, general staff (BGGS) of Irish Command, in which role he succeeded Colonel Frederick Hammersley.^[5][14][15] After being promoted to major-general in September 1908,^[16] at the very young age (in peacetime) of just 43, he was appointed an inspector of infantry in April 1909.^[17] He was appointed a deputy lieutenant of the County of Ayr in 1909.^[18]

He was appointed a Companion in the Military Division of the Order of the Bath in the 1911 Coronation Honours.^[19] In February 1913 he succeeded Major General William Pitcairn Campbell as general officer commanding (GOC) of the 5th Division,^[20] then stationed in Ireland. In this capacity he played a key role during the Curragh incident the following year, ensuring his officers obeyed orders.^[21]

He took the 5th Division to France in August 1914 shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.^[21] 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 the 5th Division.^[22]

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.^[23]

Fergusson, promoted to lieutenant general,^[24] 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.^[25]

Returning to France, he commanded II Corps of the BEF from January 1915 onwards. In February 1915 he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), "in connection with Operations in the Field".^[26] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of Leopold in 1916.^[27] In May 1916 he was moved on to take over XVII Corps from Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng, which he led until the end of the war, caused by the Armistice with Germany, in November 1918.^[21]

After the war Fergusson, promoted to the rank of full general in July 1921,^[28] was a military governor of Cologne before he retired from the army in 1922.^[5]

A year after an unsuccessful attempt to enter parliament through the South Ayrshire constituency in the 1923 general election,^[29] 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.^[30]

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:

• Helen Dorothea Fergusson (15 October 1902 – ?) married 1925 Major Leonard Proby Haviland
• Sir James Fergusson, 8th Baronet (18 September 1904 – 25 October 1973)
• The Reverend Simon Charles David Fergusson (5 June 1907 – 1982). He married Auriole Kathleen Hughes-Onslow, maternal granddaughter of Arthur Crofton, 4th Baron Crofton. They had two sons and two daughters, one of whom was Scottish MP Alex Fergusson.
• Brigadier Bernard Edward Fergusson, Baron Ballantrae (6 May 1911 – 28 November 1980)
• Charles Fergusson (16 January 1917 – 22 January 1917)

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

Lodge Empire Fergusson, No 225, still meets in Wellington.^[31]

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.

• Official biography