Dudley de Chair

De Chair was born on 30 August 1864 in Lennoxville, Province of Canada, the son of Dudley Raikes de Chair and Frances Emily, daughter of Christopher Rawson (of the landed gentry family of Rawson of The Haugh End and Mill House)[1] and the sister of Harry Rawson (whom he later succeeded as Governor of New South Wales).[2] The De Chair family, settled in England since the end of the seventeenth century, was of Huguenot descent and could trace their ancestry to Rene de la Chaire, whose grandson, Jean de la Chaire, was ennobled as a marquis in 1600 by Henry IV of France. They rose to gentry status through generations of clergymen.[1][3] In 1870, De Chair moved with his family to England and joined the Royal Navy in 1878 aged 14, being first stationed as a cadet aboard HMS Britannia.[2]

After becoming a midshipman in 1880, de Chair was posted aboard HMS Alexandra, the flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet and took part in the bombardment of Alexandria during the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882.[4] De Chair had volunteered to carry despatches to a desert fort during the bombardment but was taken prisoner and presented before the revolutionary leader Ahmed 'Urabi and gained significant publicity back home in England.[5] He was promoted to commander on 22 July 1897,[6] and to captain on 26 June 1902.[7] On 21 April 1903, at Torwood, Devon, de Chair married Enid, daughter of Henry William Struben, of Transvaal, South Africa. They had three children, Henry, Elaine and Somerset.[2] Following King Edward VII's visit to the Russian Empire, de Chair was appointed Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) on 10 June 1908 for his role in the visit as captain of HMS Cochrane.[8]

De Chair was promoted to Assistant Controller of the Navy in 1910 and served as Secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty in 1912.[4] On 6 March 1911, de Chair was appointed a Naval aide-de-camp (ADC) to King George V.[9] He relinquished the appointment on 31 July 1912, having been promoted to flag rank on that day.[10] He served in the First World War as commander of the 10th Cruiser Squadron from 1914 and, having been promoted to rear admiral on 31 July 1912,[11] became Naval Adviser to the Foreign Office on Blockade Affairs in 1916.[4] In the 1914 King's Birthday Honours, he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).[12]

In April–May 1917 De Chair was a member of the Balfour Mission, intended to promote cooperation between the United States and United Kingdom during the First World War. He went on to be Vice Admiral, 3rd Battle Squadron (that is, the squadron commander) later in 1917. A good friend of the First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, de Chair was personally affronted by the act and manner of Jellicoe's dismissal from that office in December 1917.[3] De Chair later recalled in his memoirs that he unloaded his frustrations and offence at the matter onto Jellicoe's successor, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss and found himself outside of preferment for advancement as a result.[3] Moved sideways to the much less prestigious position of Admiral Commanding, Coastguard and Reserves in July 1918, de Chair became president of the Inter-allied Commission on Enemy Warships in 1921 before retiring in 1923.[4]

De Chair speaking at the laying of the foundation stone of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 26 March 1925.

De Chair outside Government House, Sydney, 17 March 1925.

De Chair had been interested in serving in a viceregal role as early as 1922, when he put his name forward to the Colonial Office for the position of Governor of South Australia. This position however, went to Sir Tom Bridges instead and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Leo Amery, put de Chair's name forward for the Governor of New South Wales. This position, which had been vacant since the death of Sir Walter Davidson in September 1923, was the same one his uncle, Sir Harry Rawson, had held twenty years earlier, and to which he was appointed on 8 November 1923.[13][14][15]

Arriving in Sydney on 28 February 1924, de Chair became governor in relatively calm political times and was warmly received in the city with great fanfare.[16][17] On de Chair's appointment, the President of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Aubrey Halloran, compared Admiral de Chair to the first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip: "Our new Governor's reputation as an intrepid sailor and ruler of men evokes from us a hearty welcome and inspires us to place in him the same confidence that [Arthur] Phillip received from his gallant band of fellow-sailors and the English statesmen who sent him."[18]

The political makeup of the state changed not long after his arrival however, when the conservative Nationalist/Progressive coalition government of Sir George Fuller, whom de Chair had got on well with, was defeated at the May 1925 state election by the Labor Party under Jack Lang. De Chair noted to himself that Lang and his party's position comprised "radical and far-reaching legislation, which had not been foreshadowed in their election speeches".[2] He also later wrote that Lang's "lack of scruple gave me a great and unpleasant surprise".[3]

With the Labor Government only holding a single seat majority in the Legislative Assembly and only a handful of members in the upper Legislative Council, one of Lang's main targets was electoral reform. The Legislative Council, comprising members appointed by the Governor for life terms, had long been seen by Lang and the Labor Party as an outdated bastion of conservative privilege holding back their reform agenda. Although previous Labor premiers had managed to work with the status quo, such as requesting appointments from the Governor sufficient to pass certain bills, Lang's more radical political agenda required more drastic action to ensure its passage. Consequently, Lang and his government sought to abolish the council, along the same lines that their Queensland Labor colleagues had done in 1922 to their Legislative Council, by requesting from de Chair enough appointments to establish a Labor majority in the council that would then vote for abolition.

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, de Chair worked on his memoirs until his death in 1958.[13][19]

• de Chair, Sir Dudley (1961). The Sea is Strong. London; Sydney: George Harrap. p. 248.