his great-uncle, Field-Marshal Viscount Gough [q.v.], was commander-in-chief. In March 1848 a commission was obtained for him in the 8th Bengal Cavalry, and he served throughout the second Sikh War (1848–1849). He distinguished himself during the Indian Mutiny, first in the Guide Corps and afterwards in Hodson’s Irregular Horse, and took part in the siege of Delhi, in Sir James Outram’s operations near Alumbagh, and in the capture of Lucknow. He received the Victoria cross for four separate acts of gallantry in the course of the Mutiny; in one of these he saved the life of his younger brother, (Sir) Hugh Henry Gough [q.v.], and in another (18 August 1857) he led a troop of Guide cavalry in a successful charge and a hand-to-hand combat. Gough saw further service in the Bhootan expedition of 1864–1865, and commanded a brigade in the Afghan campaign of 1878–1879, receiving the special praise of the commander-in-chief for an independent action on 2 April 1879, in which he defeated the Kuggianis, an Afghan tribe, at Futtehabad. At the end of the same year, when Sir Frederick (afterwards Earl) Roberts [q.v.] was besieged by the Afghans in his cantonment at Sherpur, near Kabul, he ordered Gough to advance from Gundamuk to his assistance, and the march of seventy miles through hostile country was one of the most adventurous of the war, for the transport was miserable and the weather severe. It was accomplished in less than four days, and Gough’s approach (23 December) led the Afghans to attack, and thus gave Roberts his opportunity. For his services Gough was created K.C.B. (1881). He subsequently commanded the Hyderabad Contingent (1881), and his last employment was the charge of a division of the Bengal army (1886–1890). He was promoted general in 1891, and retired in 1895, receiving the G.C.B. He spent his last years in Ireland. In 1897 he published, in collaboration with A. D. Innes, a volume entitled The Sikhs, and the Sikh War, in which he defended the military policy of his great-uncle. He died at Innislonagh, Clonmel, 6 September 1912. Gough married in 1869 Harriette Anastasia, daughter of John W. Power, formerly M.P. for county Waterford; by her he had two sons, Lieutenant-General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough, and Brigadier-General John Edmond Gough [q.v.].
[Army Lists; The Times, 7 September 1912; Lord Roberts, Forty-one Years in India, 1897; R. S. Rait, Life of Field-Marshal Sir Frederick Haines, 1911.]
GOUGH, JOHN EDMOND (1871–1915), brigadier-general, the younger son of General Sir Charles John Stanley Gough [q.v.], was born 25 October 1871 at Murree, India, and was educated at Eton. He received a commission in the Rifle Brigade in March 1892, and was promoted lieutenant in the following year. He served in British Central Africa (1896–1897), in the Nile expedition (1898), and throughout the South African War, taking part in the defence of Ladysmith and in subsequent operations in Natal and in the Transvaal. In 1902–1903 Gough was a staff officer in the Somaliland expedition, and, while commanding a force at Daratoleh, he, with some companions, rescued a wounded officer, returning in a shower of bullets and fighting his way back through the ranks of the enemy. For this exploit he was awarded in 1903 the Victoria cross, which, having been won by his father and his uncle, had almost become a family distinction. He was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel in the same year, and in 1905 he graduated at the Staff College. In 1907 he became brevet colonel and aide-de-camp to the King and was appointed to the command in Somaliland, where he served in 1908–1909 as inspector-general of the King’s African Rifles. From 1909–1913 he was a general staff officer at the Staff College, and, at the outbreak of the European War, occupied the position of a brigadier-general on the general staff. In the first six months of the war he served on the staff of Sir Douglas Haig, and by his scientific knowledge of his profession, his sound judgement, the vigour of his personality, and what has been described as his ‘flair and instinct for military operations’, he made a deep impression on all ranks of the army and raised high expectations of his future. While inspecting trenches on 20 February 1915 he was hit by a ricochet bullet and died at Estaires two days later. Sir John French in his dispatch of 5 April expressed his ‘deep sense of the loss incurred by the army in general and by the forces in France in particular’, by Gough’s death, and added, ‘I always regarded General Gough as one of our most promising military leaders of the future’. The honour of K.C.B. was conferred upon him posthumously on 20 April. Gough married in 1907 Dorothea, daughter of General Sir Charles Keyes, and left one daughter.
[Army Lists; The Times, 24 February 1915.]
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