Francis Hoare

Major General Francis Richard Gurney Hoare (14 December 187931 May 1959) was a South African military commander.

Born in Frognal, Hampstead, London, he was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the British Army in 1894. He served in the Anglo-Boer War, after which he settled in the Transvaal as a civil servant.

He joined the Transvaal Horse Artillery in 1912. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was seconded to the British Army as an officer in the Army Ordnance Department. From there he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in 1917.

From 1933 to 1937, he served as the Union Defence Forces' Director Of Technical Services, and was briefly Director of Air and Technical Services (with the rank of colonel) before retiring in 1937. He retired again at the end of the war.

Awards He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his World War I services. In 1944, he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.