Viscount Gort - Viscount Gort, Peerage of The United Kingdom

Viscount Gort, Peerage of The United Kingdom

John Vereker, the sixth Viscount, was the great-grandson of his namesake. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 the family chose to emigrate and settle in County Durham. This Lord Gort was a distinguished soldier whose personal courage in the First World War was recognised with the highest decoration of the British Empire, the Victoria Cross, plus three further gallantry decorations, before achieving the most senior post in the British Army, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. It was Lord Gort who commanded the BEF in 1939 and his leadership during the disastrous withdrawal from France preserved his reputation at an unhappy time for the nation. He then had another tough appointment, as Governor of Malta in its darkest days, before becoming High Commissioner of British Mandate for Palestine and the Transjordan, itself hardly a rest-cure at this time. Promotion to Field Marshal and the creation of the new Viscountcy at the end of the war was an indicator of his standing as soldier and imperial administrator. The 1946 title was Viscount Gort, of Hamsterley Hall in the County of Durham, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He kept his style modest, avoiding, for example, the self-conscious possibility of Lord Gort and Gort. Field Marshal Lord Gort had no living sons and, unlike his own ancestor, did not have a special remainder, so on his death just one month after the creation of the new title, the new viscountcy became extinct, whilst the Irish titles passed to his brother.