John Ponsonby (General)

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Sir John Ponsonby KCB , CMG , DSO (* 25. March 1866 , † 26. March 1952 ) was a British general and division commander in the First World War .

origin

John Ponsonby came from a family with a long military tradition. His father was General Sir Henry Frederick Ponsonby (1825-1895), private secretary to Queen Victoria from 1870 until shortly before his death , and his grandfather was Major General Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783-1837), who was in the war on the Iberian Peninsula under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington had fought against Napoleon . The Ponsonby family also included the Earls of Bessborough, who were related to the Dukes of Devonshire by marriage, and Major General Sir William Ponsonby (1772-1815), who had fallen at Waterloo . Sir John's maternal grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Gray, was a daughter of Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray , who was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834 .

Military career

John Ponsonby graduated from Eton College and then entered the Derbyshire militia. He received an officer license with the Irish Rifles and in 1888 moved to the Coldstream Guards , with whom he served in Matabeleland (1893-1894) and Uganda (1898-1899) and South Africa (1899-1902).

During his time in the Rhodesian Field Force , he was regimental adjutant of the 5th New Zealand Regiment . When his colonel retired, Ponsonby was elected as the new commander by the soldiers of the regiment. Although this operation was unusual, Ponsonby was confirmed in his command and when the regiment returned to New Zealand on schedule , Ponsonby went with him but returned to Britain in 1899 because he was sick with 'blackwater fever' ( malaria ).

After his recovery he returned to South Africa with the 2nd Guards Mounted Infantry , which Kipling immortalized in his poem "MI" , and took part in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902 . He was mentioned in the war report, was named Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1902 .

During the First World War he was deployed on the Western Front, he was mentioned seven times in the war report and was wounded equally often. Between August 1915 and August 1917 he led the 2nd Guard Brigade as part of the Guard Division . On August 24, 1917, he became the commander of the 40th Division established in 1915, which he commanded in November 1917 at the Battle of Cambrai and in March 1918 during the German Michael Offensive . On July 3, 1918, he took over command of the 5th Division, which he held until the end of the war. After the war, Ponsonby went to India as a commander in the Madras district . On February 22, 1925 he was until 1939 Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment (since 1959 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) ).

For his services he received several domestic and foreign medals, including the French Croix de Guerre and the Belgian War Cross , was Companion and later Knight Commander of the Bath Order , commander of the Belgian Order of the Leopold and an officer of the Legion of Honor . He was also named major general of the Coldstream Guards .

Life after the military

Major General Sir John Ponsonby retired from active service in 1928 and moved to Haile Hall , Cumbria / Cumberland, an old country estate of his family who emigrated to Ireland in 1660, which he had bought back. On December 21, 1935, he married 34-year-old Mary Robley, known as "Molly," in the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields .

Ponsonby died on March 26, 1952, the day after his 86th birthday, leaving no descendants. Lady Mary Ponsonby died on April 18, 2003 at the age of 101 (born July 3, 1901).

John Ponsonby was a close friend of the South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts , who was a frequent guest at Haile Hall . Ponsonby's memorial, a stained glass window by Sir Edward Burne-Jones depicting Saint George with the dragon, is in the church in Haile-Ponsonby, Cumbria .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur Charles Fox-Davies: Armorial families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armor (Volume 2) (page 132 of 282). In: ebooksread.com. Retrieved November 22, 2015 .
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 27413, HMSO, London, March 4, 1902, p. 1538 ( PDF , English).
  3. ^ Mary, Lady Ponsonby, 100th Birthday. In: robley.org.uk. March 24, 1944, accessed November 23, 2015 .
  4. ^ Obituaries for Lady Mollie Ponsonby (née Robley). In: robley.org.uk. April 22, 2003, accessed November 23, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Ponsonby, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British general and division commander in World War I.
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1866
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1952