Catalogue description Major General Sir John Charles Ardagh: Papers

John Ardagh, the son of an Anglo-Irish clergyman, was born and educated in Co. Waterford. He passed first out of the RMA, Woolwich in 1859 and early in his career as a Royal Engineer officer appears to have come under the notice of senior officers of his Corps and at the War Office. He was a gifted linguist, mathematician and artist, and managed as a young officer to travel widely in Europe, and was present in Paris during the latter stages of the Franco-Prussian war.

Sir John's career, though he never reached the top ranks in the army, was one of wide variety and exceptional interest. An early transfer, as a captain in 1875, into the intelligence branch of the War Office, resulted in six years of important services in Turkey and the Balkans, including membership of two frontier delimitation commissions, those of Bulgaria and the Turco-Greek. From 1882 to 1887, when he rose in rank from major to full colonel, he served in Egypt, latterly as AAG, Cairo, and was closely involved in the two Anglo-Egyptian expeditions to the Sudan in 1884-1885. From 1888 to 1894 he served in India as private secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, whose friendship stood him in good stead in the succeeding years when, like so many regular officers of the period without private means, he was in continual anxiety about his future employment. This facet of his character comes through strongly in the correspondence. He received the KCIE in 1894 at the conclusion of his Indian service.

On return from India, Sir John became in 1896 Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office, and was promoted major general in 1898. In the later period of this office he appears to have suffered the only setback of his career, being publicly criticised for the apparent failure of the Intelligence Division accurately to forecast the strength of the Boer forces. He received no further promotion and retired in 1902, having served as British Military Technical delegate at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899, on the South African Claims Commission in 1901-1902 and as a member of the British Tribunal for the Chile-Argentine boundary arbitration in 1902. The papers reflect his interest in Central and South American affairs at this period.

For the remaining five years of his life, Sir John's active mind was well occupied with his membership of several learned bodies, Red Cross work and conferences and his directorship of the Suez Canal Company.