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General 'Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet' GCB GCVO GBE KCMG DSO (25 June 1861–29 January 1953), usually known as 'Reginald Wingate', was a British general and administrator in Egypt and the Sudan.

Contents

Early life

Military career

Administrative career

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

Early life

Wingate was born at Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, the seventh son of Andrew Wingate, a textile merchant of Glasgow, and Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Turner of Dublin. His father died when he was a year old, and the family, in straitened circumstances, moved to Jersey, where he was educated at St James's Collegiate School.

Military career

He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 27 July 1880.^[1] He served in India and Aden from March 1881 to 1883, when he joined the 4th Battalion of the Egyptian Army on its reorganisation by Sir Evelyn Wood with the brevet rank of Major. In the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884–1885 he was ADC and military secretary to Sir Evelyn. In 1883 he received the Order of the Osmanieh 4th Class from the Khedive.^[2] In June 1885 he was Mentioned in Despatches for service in operations in the Suakin and Upper Nile regions.^[3]
After holding an appointment in England for a brief period as ADC to Wood, who was now General Officer Commanding Eastern District, he rejoined the Egyptian Army in 1886 as assistant military secretary to Sir Francis Grenfell. In 1886 he was also promoted to the regimental rank of Captain.^[4] In 1887 he received the Order of the Medjidieh 4th Class.^[5] He took part in the operations on the Sudan frontier in 1889, including the engagement at Toski (for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO)^[6]) and in the further operations in 1891, being present at the capture of Tokar. His principal work was in the intelligence branch, of which he became assistant adjutant-general in 1888 and director in 1892. A master of Arabic, his knowledge of the country, the examination of prisoners, refugees and others from the Sudan, and the study of documents captured from the Dervishes enabled him to publish in 1891 ''Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan'', an authoritative account of the rise of the Muhammad Ahmad and of subsequent events in the Sudan up to that date. In 1891 he was promoted to the 3rd Class of the Order of the Medjidieh.^[7] In 1894 he was governor of Suakin. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1895 Birthday Honours^[8] and was promoted to Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on 18 November 1896.^[9]
Largely through his assistance, Father Ohrwalder and two nuns escaped from Omdurman in 1891. Wingate also made the arrangements which led to the escape of Slatin Pasha in 1895. He translated into English Father Ohrwalder's narrative (''Ten Years in the Mahdi's Camp'', 1892) and Slatin's book (''Fire and Sword in the Sudan'', 1896).
As director of military intelligence he served in the campaigns of 1896–1898 which resulted in the reconquest of the Sudan, including the engagement at Firket, the battles of the Atbara and Omdurman and the expedition to Fashoda. He briefly (March–June 1897) went to Abyssinia as second in command of the Rennell Rodd mission, for which he was awarded the Star of Ethiopia 2nd Class.^[10] For his services he was promoted Brevet Colonel and made an extra ADC to Queen Victoria on 17 December 1897,^[11] received the thanks of Parliament, and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) on 11 November 1898.^[12] On 8 September 1898 he was promoted to the regimental rank of Major.^[13] Wingate was in command of an expeditionary force which in November 1899 defeated the remnant of the Dervish host at the Umm Diwaykarat, Kordofan, the ''khalifa'' being among the slain. For this achievement he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) on 13 March 1900^[14] and awarded the Order of Osmanieh 2nd Class.^[15]

Administrative career

In December 1899, on Lord Kitchener being summoned to South Africa, Sir Reginald Wingate succeeded him as Governor-General of the Sudan and ''Sirdar'' of the Egyptian Army, being promoted to Local Major-General on 22 December 1899.^[16] His administration of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, between 1899 and 1916, was successful, with the country regaining a degree of prosperity and its infrastructure being rebuilt and expanded. In 1901 he was promoted to the Order of the Medjidieh 1st Class^[17] and in 1905 to the Order of the Osmanieh 1st Class.^[18] In 1903 he was promoted substantive Major-General and in 1908 Lieutenant-General. He was also created a ''pasha'' and in 1905 received the honorary degree of DCL from the University of Oxford. In 1909, at the request of the British government, Wingate undertook a special mission to Somaliland to report on the military situation in connection with the proposed evacuation of the interior of the protectorate. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) on 17 January 1912,^[19] Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1914 Birthday Honours,^[20] and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 1918 New Year Honours.^[21] In 1915 he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile^[22] and in 1917 the Grand Cordon of the Order of Mohammed Ali.^[23] He was promoted General between 1912 and 1914. From 1916 to 1919 he was also commander of military operations in the Hedjaz.
In 1917, Wingate succeeded Sir Henry McMahon as High Commissioner in Egypt, a post he held until 1919. He was not a successful administrator in the very different political climate in that country, and was made a scapegoat for the riots incited by Saad Zaghlul and his party that plagued Egypt. Angry at his treatment, Wingate refused to actually resign, even after he was officially replaced by Lord Allenby, and threatened to embarrass the British Government. He was refused a peerage or another appointment, although he was created a baronet in the 1920 Birthday Honours. He never held another public or military office, retiring from the Army on 1 February 1922,^[24] but became a director of a number of companies. For many years he was the senior general of the British Army.
Wingate married Catherine Rundle (later Dame Catherine Wingate) on 18 June 1888.

Footnotes

1. ''London Gazette'', 3 August 1880
2. ''London Gazette'', 13 November 1883
3. ''London Gazette'', 25 August 1885
4. ''London Gazette'', 10 August 1886
5. ''London Gazette'', 3 May 1887
6. ''London Gazette'', 8 November 1889
7. ''London Gazette'', 18 August 1891
8. ''London Gazette'', 11 June 1895
9. ''London Gazette'', 17 November 1896
10. ''London Gazette'', 27 August 1897
11. ''London Gazette'', 11 March 1898
12. ''London Gazette'', 15 November 1898
13. ''London Gazette'', 27 September 1898
14. ''London Gazette'', 13 March 1900
15. ''London Gazette'', 9 February 1900
16. ''London Gazette'', 6 March 1900
17. ''London Gazette'', 4 January 1901
18. ''London Gazette'', 14 July 1905
19. ''London Gazette'', 13 February 1912
20. ''London Gazette'', 19 June 1914
21. ''London Gazette'', 4 January 1918
22. ''London Gazette'', 16 November 1915
23. ''London Gazette'', 20 April 1917
24. ''London Gazette'', 31 January 1922

References

★ Biography, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''

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Further reading

★ The Sirdar: Sir Reginald Wingate and the British Empire in the Middle East, Daly, Martin W., , , American Philosophical Society, 1997, Biography, online in full

External links

★ ''Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan: Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahdiism and of Subsequent events in the Sudan Up to the Present Time'' by Francis Reginald Wingate

★ ''Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp, 1882-1892'' by Fr. Ohrwalder, translated by Wingate

★ ''Fire and Sword in the Sudan'' by Slatin, translated by Wingate