Édouard Percy Cranwill Girouard KCMG DSO (1867 - 1932)

Born 26 Jan 1867 in Montréal, Québec, Canada

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Gwendolen (Solomon) Girouard — married 10 Sep 1903 (to 1915) in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa

Died 26 Sep 1932 at age 65 in London, England

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Biography

Percy Girouard KCMG DSO is Notable.

Édouard Percy Cranwill Girouard was a Canadian military engineer, railway builder, colonial administrator, office holder, and industrialist.

Born in 1867, he was the son of Désiré Girouard and Essie Cranwill.

He was a graduate of Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in 1886.^[1] After working for two years with the Canadian Pacific Railway, he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1888.^[2]

He managed the building of two train lines that played a central part in the British conquest of Sudan and received the Distinguished Service Order following the defeat of the Sudanese.^[3] He was later Director of Imperial Military Railways during the 1899 – 1902 Boer War, with mentions in despatches, ^[4][5] and was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.^[6] In 1906, he became High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria, continuing to build railways, and from 1909-1912, he became governor of the East Africa Protectorate.^[7]

During his governorship of British East Africa in 1911, about 10,000 Masai, with 200,000 cattle and 2 million sheep, were forced to march 150 km southward to a semiarid area near German East Africa, with an unknown number of Masai and their livestock dying on this “trail of tears”.^[8]

Mount Girouard in Banff National Park, as well as a plaque and building at RMC, are named in his honour.

He married Mary Gwendoline Soloman in Pretoria, South Africa; they had one son, They divorced in 1915.

He died in London, England, 26 September 1932. He is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England.

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Percy Girouard
2. ↑ Frank Mackey. 2007. "Appelé en Égypte, au Soudan, au Niger... Et ailleurs... : Qui se souvient de l’ingénieur Percy Girouard?". La revue d'histoire du Québec. Cap-aux-Diamants, (90), 32–35.
3. ↑ Pigott, Peter. 2009. "Canada In Sudan War Without Borders". Toronto: Dundurn Press.
4. ↑ The London Gazette. No. 27466. 19 August 1902. p. 5398.
5. ↑ The London Gazette. No. 27282. 8 February 1901. p. 845.
6. ↑ The London Gazette. No. 27306. 19 April 1901. p. 2698.
7. ↑ Kirk-Greene, A.H.M "Canada in Africa: Sir Percy Girouard, Neglected Colonial Governor" pages 207-239 from African Affairs, Volume 83, No 331, April 1984.
8. ↑ Yves Engler. 2017. "Do Canadians really want monuments to racist colonialists?".

See also:

• The Dictionary of Canadian Biography
• Canadians on the Nile, by Roy MacLaren; UBC Press; 2011, p. 22
• Find A Grave