Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Gough, John Edmond
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.]