Dudley de Chair

Dudley De Chair

Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair, KCB, KCMG, KBE, MVO (30 August 1864 – 17 August 1958) was a Naval Officer and Governor. De Chair joined the Royal Navy from the age of 16 and served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and later as an Admiral in the First World War. He was appointed as Governor of New South Wales in 1923. Arriving in Sydney in 1924, De Chair became Governor in stable political times. However, when the Fuller Conservatives were defeated by the Labor Party under Jack Lang, De Chair found himself in conflict with Lang's revolutionary reform program, particularly over Lang's attempts to abolish the New South Wales Legislative Council. While Lang's attempts ultimately failed, De Chair failed to gain the support of an indifferent Dominions Office. With Lang's departure in 1927, the Nationalist Government of Thomas Bavin invited him in 1929 to stay on as Governor for a further term. De Chair agreed only to a year's extension and retired on 8 April 1930. Returning to London after a global trip, he worked on his memoirs until his death in 1958.

He married Enid Struben in 1903 and they had three children, Henry Graham de Chair, Elaine de Chair and Somerset de Chair.