Uchter John Mark Knox, 5th Earl of RanfurlyGCMGGCStJPC (Ire)JPDL (14 August 1856 – 1 October 1933), was a British politician and colonial governor. He was Governor of New Zealand from 1897 to 1904.
He succeeded in the earldom (and several subsidiary titles) in May 1875 when his elder brother died on a shooting expedition in Abyssinia. His family had owned a large country estate centred on Dungannon in the southeast of County Tyrone in Ulster since 1692.[2]
Ranfurly served as a Lord-in-Waiting under Lord Salisbury between 1895 and 1897 and was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1897 for his public services. He was appointed to succeed The Earl of Glasgow as Governor of New Zealand on 6 April 1897, assuming office on 10 August. Lord Ranfurly became Honorary Colonel of the 1st Wellington Battalion (1898) and of the 1st South Canterbury Mounted Rifles (1902). He was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in June 1901, on the occasion of the visit of TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) to New Zealand.[3] His term ended on 19 June 1904, when he personally handed over office to Lord Plunket. He is remembered for his donation of the Ranfurly Shield, a New Zealand sporting trophy.
On his return to England Ranfurly was made an Irish Privy Counsellor (1905); then for a time, he returned to farm in Mildura, Victoria, Australia. But he soon devoted more and more time to his other great interest, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1914 he was a Knight of Justice, and Registrar of the Order in London, becoming (1915–19) Director of its Ambulance Department. In 1919 the French Government made him an Officer of the Legion of Honour for his services in this connection during the war.
Lady Annette Agnes Knox (1880–1886), who died young.[5]
Thomas Uchter Knox, Viscount Northland (1882–1915), who married Hilda Susan Ellen Cooper, a daughter of Sir Daniel Cooper, 2nd Baronet, in 1912.[6] He had been party to a public divorce in 1909.[7]
Lady Eileen Maud Juliana Knox (1891–1972), who married Charles Loraine Carlos Clarke, son of Charles Carlos Clarke, in 1914.[9] They divorced in 1935 and she married Peter Stanley Chappell, son of Thomas Stanley Chappell, in 1935. Her first husband later became the father of artist Bob Carlos Clarke.[5]
^"Ranfurly, 5th Earl of, (Uchter John Mark Knox) (14 Aug. 1856–1 Oct. 1933)." WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 25 Mar. 2018
^Colm J. Donnelly, Emily V. Murray and Ronan McHugh, 'Dungannon Castle: its history, architecture and archaeology' in Dúiche Néill: Journal of the O'Neill Country Historical Society - Number 17, p. 21. Dungannon and Monaghan, 2008.
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