He arrived at Cape Town on 6 Sept. 1899, and was there during the chief stages of the Boer war. Placed in command of the lines of communication, he performed his exceedingly important duties with his usual thoroughness. At the outset he had to provide for the defence of a frontier 1000 miles long, and was active in support of Sir Redvers Buller's advance. He was twice mentioned in despatches. On 18 April 1901 he handed over his post to Major-general Wynne, and embarked for England. On 7 July 1902 he attained the rank of general, and on 1 Sept. 1905 he succeeded Sir George White (1835–1912) as governor and commander-in-chief of Gibraltar, having just before, on 31 July of the same year, been nominated colonel of the King's Own Scottish Borderers. He received the reward for distinguished service in 1893, and was nominated G.C.M.G. in 1900.
He died from heart failure at Tenby on 30 Aug. 1910, and was buried at Bushey, Hertfordshire. In 1887 he married Mabel Louisa, daughter of Lieut.-colonel A. E. Ross, late Northumberland fusiliers, and left one son.
A caricature portrait by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1902.
[The Times, 1 Sept. 1910; T. Martineau, Life of Sir Bartle Frere, 1895, vol. ii.; Sir Frederick Maurice, History of the War in South Africa (1899–1902), 4 vols. 1906–1910; The Times History of the War in South Africa, ii. 114, iii. 207–8; Walford's County Families; Hart's and Official Army Lists; Burke's Peerage.]
FORSTER, HUGH OAKELEY ARNOLD- (1855–1909), secretary of state for war. [See Arnold-Forster.]
FORTESCUE, HUGH, third Earl Fortescue (1818–1905), eldest son of Hugh, second earl (1783-1861), by his first wife, Lady Susan (d. 1827), eldest daughter of Dudley Ryder, first earl of Harrowby, was born in London on 4 April 1818. A younger brother, Dudley Francis Fortescue (1820–1909), was M.P. for Andover (1857-1874) and a commissioner in lunacy (1867–1883). Known till his grandfather's death in 1841 as the Hon. Hugh Fortescue, and thenceforth till 1859 as Viscount Ebrington, he was educated at Harrow school and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He left the university in 1839 to become private secretary to his father, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1840-1 he was private secretary to Lord Melbourne, the prime minister. Elected in 1841 M.P. for Plymouth in the whig interest, he held the seat for eleven years, having as his opponent in 1843 the chartist, Henry Vincent [q. v.]. Declining to stand again for Plymouth, he unsuccessfully contested Barnstaple in 1852, the constituency being disfranchised for bribery two years later. In 1854 he was returned for Marylebone, and he held the seat until 1859, when, owing to ill-health, he resigned, and on 5 December was raised to the peerage in his father's barony of Fortescue. On his father's death on 14 Sept. 1861, he succeeded to the earldom.
Ebrington, who had advocated the repeal of the corn laws, was appointed a lord-in-waiting in the Russell government of 1846, and from 1847 to 1851 was secretary to the poor law board. He was also appointed a member (unpaid) of the Metropolitan Consolidated Commission on Sewers in 1847, and was its chairman (unpaid) in 1849–51. He had no place in the Aberdeen goverment, but taking great interest in the health of the soldiers during the war with Russia, he visited in 1856 the barracks and military hospitals. Contracting ophthalmia, he lost an eye, and seriously injured his health. His speeches strenuously advocated sanitary improvements in the army, and he spoke frequently on the reform of local government in London. After his elevation to the peerage, Fortescue took little part in parliamentary life. Though a liberal by tradition, he differed from Gladstone on the Eastern crisis of 1878–9, and sat on the cross benches. He declared himself a liberal unionist on the home rule controversy in 1886.
A social reformer of much earnestness. Lord Fortescue was the author of numerous addresses and pamphlets on local government, health in towns, middle-class education, and other subjects. They included 'Unhealthiness of Towns,' a lecture delivered in the Mechanics' Institute at Plymouth (1846); 'Representative Self-Government for the Metropolis,' a letter to Lord Palmerston (1854); 'Public Schools for the Middle Classes' (1864); an address to the section of statistics and economic science, British Association, Plymouth (1877); and an address read at the Sanitary Congress, Exeter (1880). 'Our Next Leap in the Dark,' on the franchise bill, a reprint from the 'Nineteenth Century' (1884), showed the drift of his political ideas. He favoured the extension of the powers given to county authorities under the Local Government Act of 1888, and advocated the establishment of a local university in Devonshire. He supported Frederick Temple, then bishop of Exeter [q. v. Suppl. II], in establishing the diocesan
