Sir Francis Alexander Newdigate Newdegate, (31 December 1862 – 2 January 1936) was an English Conservative Party politician. After over twenty years in the House of Commons, he served as Governor of Tasmania from 1917 to 1920, and Governor of Western Australia from 1920 to 1924.

Early life and family

Born in 1862, he was the son of

Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Francis William Newdigate and his first wife Charlotte Elizabeth Agnes Sophia Woodford, and grandson of Francis Parker Newdigate. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1883. He married Elizabeth Sophia Lucia Bagot on 13 October 1888. Newdegate inherited estates at

Arbury Hall Arbury Hall () is a Grade I listed country house in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, and the ancestral home of the Newdigate family, later the Newdigate-Newdegate and Fitzroy-Newdegate families. History The hall is built on the site of the ...

, near

Nuneaton Nuneaton ( ) is a market town in the borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth in northern Warwickshire, England, close to the county border with Leicestershire and West Midlands County.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : Nuneaton's ...

and at Harefield, near Uxbridge, on the death of his father in 1893, and uncle Sir Edward Newdegate in 1902. He assumed the additional surname "Newdegate", differently spelt, under the terms of the will of a kinsman Charles Newdigate Newdegate, in September 1902. In 1911 he erected, at Arbury Hall, a monument to the memory of George Eliot, whose father had been employed on the Arbury estate.

Career

Newdegate was Member of Parliament for

from 1892 to 1906, and for Tamworth from 1909 to 1917. He was on 14 February 1917 appointed Steward of the Manor of Northstead, a mechanism for resigning from the House of Commons, on his appointment as Governor of Tasmania. Newdegate was appointed a

Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...

in 1917 upon his appointment as Governor of Tasmania (1917 to 1920). He was appointed Governor of Western Australia in 1920 where he served until 1924. On retirement he was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the

Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, George III, King George III. ...

in 1925. The Western Australian town of Newdegate is named after him.

Later life and death

Newdegate was appointed

High Steward of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield The High Steward of Sutton Coldfield was an office relating to the government of the town of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, England. History Prior to the Royal Charter of 1528 Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley held the office of High S ...

in 1925. On his death in 1936 his estates passed to his daughter Lucia, who in 1919, had married John Maurice Fitzroy, father of the 3rd Viscount Daventry.

Personal life

He was a friend of Sir Alexander Russell Downer, who built a large home and gardens in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and named it Arbury Park after the Newdigate family home.

References

External links