Francis Newdegate

Sir Francis Alexander Newdigate Newdegate, (31 December 1862 – 2 January 1936) was an English Conservative Party politician. After over twenty years in the House of Commons, he served as Governor of Tasmania from 1917 to 1920, and Governor of Western Australia from 1920 to 1924.

Early life and family Born in 1862, he was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Francis William Newdigate and his first wife Charlotte Elizabeth Agnes Sophia Woodford, and grandson of Francis Parker Newdigate. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1883. He married Elizabeth Sophia Lucia Bagot on 13 October 1888.

Newdegate inherited estates at Arbury Hall, near Nuneaton and at Harefield, near Uxbridge, on the death of his father in 1893, and uncle Sir Edward Newdegate in 1902. He assumed the additional surname "Newdegate", differently spelt, under the terms of the will of a kinsman Charles Newdigate Newdegate, in September 1902. In 1911 he erected, at Arbury Hall, a monument to the memory of George Eliot, whose father had been employed on the Arbury estate.

Newdegate was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1917 upon his appointment as Governor of Tasmania (1917 to 1920). He was appointed Governor of Western Australia in 1920 where he served until 1924. On retirement he was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1925. The Western Australian town of Newdegate is named after him.