Richard William Howard Gorges

Richard William Howard Gorges (c1876-1944) came from an Irish family of Norman descent. He served in the Boer War and was later implicated in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. He was never prosecuted for this offence, but was later found guilty of shooting a policeman and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Family Richard William Howard Gorges was from the Irish branch of the Norman Gorges family that had settled in England in the early 13th century. His great-great-grandfather was Gorges Edmond Howard, his great-grandfather was Captain Hamilton Gorges, M.P., of Kilbrew and Ballygowley, and his father was Major John Arthur Howard Gorges. His mother, Mary Kelly, was a published author and poet who was descended from Arthur French of Frenchpark, County Roscommon. South Africa Gorges was born in Boyle, County Roscommon in 1876 and in about 1888 moved to South Africa, where he had family connections. He fought in the Second Matabele War (1896) and joined the Cape police force in 1897; on his application form for the Cape Police he claimed that he had spent eighteen months in the Royal Canadian Dragoons. He next fought in the Boer War, first as a trooper with Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry from November 1899, but was dishonourably discharged in March 1900 for alleged sodomy. He then became an orderly with the Imperial Hospital Corps from May to September 1900, later joining Scott’s Railway Guards as a lieutenant in April 1901, leaving in September 1901. His final posting in South Africa was as a lieutenant in the Border Scouts from November 1901 to May 1902. In November 1902 he was back in Britain, where he joined the 3rd Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, as an instructor in musketry with the rank of captain. Irish Crown Jewels