Sir John Christopher Willoughby, 5th Baronet

Sir John Christopher Willoughby, 5th Baronet DSO (20 February 1859 – 16 April 1918 ) was a British army officer, Justice of the Peace for Oxfordshire, and landowner of properties in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

After education at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, John Christopher Willoughby joined the 3rd (Royal Bucks Militia) Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, as a lieutenant in 1879. From the militia he secured a commission in the Regular Army as a 2nd lieutenant in the 6th Dragoon Guards and then transferred to the Royal Horse Guards in 1880.

Jameson Raid

In 1884 gold was discovered in the Transvaal. By the end of 1895 within the Transvaal there were approximately 60,000 non-Boer European men (mostly British and some with their families) and 30,000 male Boers. On 29 December 1895, the British South Africa Company sent an armed force of about 600 men, in 2 mounted columns, into the Transvaal against the South African Republic, which retained sovereignty from 1852 to 1902. The incursion is known in history as the Jameson raid (under the command of Leander Starr Jameson). John Christopher Willoughby was second in command and took command of the expedition when the two columns united northwest of Johannesburg on 30 December. The Jameson raiders skirmished against Boer resistance on 1 January and the next day were defeated and surrendered after losing approximately 30 men. The captured raiders were taken to Pretoria and jailed. The Boers later gave custody of the prisoners to the British for trial in London. Jameson was sentenced to 15 months and Willoughby was sentenced to 10 months.

Baronetcy He became, at age seven, the 5th Baronet of Baldon House in 1866, upon the death of his father, Sir John Willoughby, 4th Baronet. The baronetcy became extinct in 1918 upon his own death.