VISCOUNT GALWAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1943, Page 2

VISCOUNT GALWAY

SUDDEN DEATH IN BRITAIN

Viscount Galway, D.5.0., 0.8. E., whose sudden death was announced from London to-day, was GovernorGeneral of New Zealand from 1935 to 1941, his term of office being an extended one. Like his predecessor, Lord Bledisloe, he took a practical interest in farming. Viscount Galway, who stood 6ft 4in, was named George Vere Arundell Monckton-Arundell, and was born in March, 1882, the eldest son of the 7th

;Viscount and Vere, eldest daughter of Mr. Ellis Gosling, of Godalming, Surrey. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1900 he joined the Sherwood Rangers, the Yeomanry Regiment, which his father, who was a famous politician known in the House of Commons as the "stormy petrel," commanded. He took a commission in the First Life Guards in 1904 and was one of the first British officers to set foot in France in 1914. In 1919 he reached the rank of brevet LieutenantColonel, and from 1925 to 1929 commanded the First Life Guards. In seeking to enter politics in 1910 he came within 52 votes of winning Scarborough for the Conservatives. He was well-known in England as a huntsman and fisherman. Viscount Galway had the rare distinction of having been awarded the French Order of Merit for Agriculture. He was also a distinguished Freemason An Irish peer, he sat in the House of Lords by virtue of his British title of Lord Monckton. In 1922 he married the Hon. Lucia White, who was once a maid of honour to Queen Alexandra and was a daughter of the third Lord Annaly There are four children, the Honourables Mary, Celia and Isabel Monckton, born in 1924, 1925 and 1926 respectively, and the Hon. Simon Monckton-Arundell, born in 1929, the heir to the viscounty. While in New Zealand the children took an active part in riding and other sports. Viscount Galway had relatives in New Zealand, one of them a cousin, the late Rev. William G. Monckton, having been vicar of Takapuna for many years.