Sir Thomas Montgomery-Cuninghame, 10th Baronet

Sir Thomas Andrew Alexander Montgomery-Cuninghame, 10th Baronet (30 March 1877 – 5 January 1945), was a British Army officer and Distinguished Service Order recipient.

Early life Montgomery-Cuninghame was born on 30 March 1877 in London, the sixth child, and eldest son, of Elizabeth Hartopp and Sir William Montgomery-Cuninghame, 9th Baronet. His eldest sister, Edith Honoria, married Sir John Tilley in 1901.

His paternal grandparents were Sir Thomas Montgomery-Cuninghame, 8th Baronet, and the former Charlotte Niven Doig Hutcheson (only child of Hugh Hutcheson of Southfield, Renfrewshire). His mother was the youngest child of Edward Bourchier Hartopp, MP for North Leicestershire, and the former Honoria Gent (a daughter of Maj.-Gen. William Gent). and then entered Sandhurst although he had not expected to pass the entrance exams.

Career On the death of his father in 1897, he became the 10th Baronet of Corsehill. Although his father was already very ill, he accepted a 12-month posting to Singapore. This wound severed a vein or artery under his knee and was to alter the course of his military career. In 1901, at the age of 23, Montgomery-Cuninghame was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

In 1907, he was posted back to the 1st Rifle Brigade and Holywood, Belfast, Ireland. He remained in Ireland for five years. Thom's Official Directory shows him as a Staff Captain, Curragh Camp, Kildare, Ireland in 1910 and the 1911 Irish census shows him still in Kildare, living with his wife, son and daughter in Ballyfair (Ballysax, West Kildare), whereas other sources state he was the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General, 5th Division Irish Cmd between 1909 and 1912. In the spring of 1912 he was posted to the 3rd Battalion Rifle Brigade at Tipperary, but he was not to remain there.

By the summer of 1912, he had taken over the position of Military Attaché from Major Eardly-Russell at Vienna, Austria, and Cetinje, Albania. There, he was tasked with gathering intelligence and reporting on the personal and political complications, intrigues and allegiances involving Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia. Colonel Montgomery-Cuninghame retired on retirement pay on 18 August 1924.

After his distinguished military career, he became the Director of European Motorways. Pamela Richenda Cubitt Montgomery-Cuninghame (1910–1978), who became a noted florist and ran a plant nursery; she married Thomas Abdy Combe, a son of John Abdy Combe, in 1932. They divorced in 1941 and she married Desmond FitzGerald Underwood, a son of Charles Frederick Weston Underwood, in 1942.

They divorced in 1925 Sir Thomas then married Nancy Macaulay Foggo of British Columbia on 24 November 1925 in London, daughter of William Stewart Foggo and Flora Alexandra née Macaulay, with whom he had two more sons. As he was predeceased by his eldest son, he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his second son, William. After his death in 1959 without issue, the baronetcy passed to his youngest son, John. Legion of Honour Conferred by the President of the French Republic, Commandeur on 11 July 1919 Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army) Conferred by the President of the United States of America on 12 July 1919 The Croix de Guerre Conferred by the Government of the Czechoslovak Republic 29 March 1922 Military Order of Maria Theresa Medal, Austria Grand Cross Order of George I, Greece Order of the Redeemer, Greece