Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Gerard, Montagu Gilbert
GERARD, Sir MONTAGU GILBERT (1842–1905), general, born at Edinburgh on 29 June 1842, was second son in a family of three sons and four daughters of Archibald Gerard (1812–1880) of Rochsoles, near Airdrie, Lanarkshire, by his wife Euphemia Erskine (d. 1870), eldest daughter of Sir John Robison [q. v.]. He was a great-grandson of Alexander Gerard [q. v.], philosophical writer, and of Archibald Alison [q. v.], father of the historian. The family was originally Scottish episcopalian, but the mother joined the church of Rome in 1848, the father a little later, and the children were brought up as Roman catholics. Montagu's eldest brother became Father John Gerard, S.J., and his eldest sister was Jane Emily, Madame de Laszowska [q. v. Suppl. II]. He was admitted to Stonyhurst in 1850, and subsequently passed four years at Ushaw (1865–9).
After spending some time on the Continent, Gerard went through the usual course at Woolwich. He was gazetted lieutenant in the royal artillery on 19 April 1864, and undertook garrison duty at Gibraltar. In 1866, on being transferred to the field artillery, he was stationed in the central provinces, India. In 1867–8 he was employed on the transport train during the Abyssinian expedition; he was mentioned in despatches and received the war medal. In 1870 he joined the Bengal staff corps, and was attached to the Central India horse. Promoted captain on 19 April 1876, he acted as brigade major throughout the second Afghan war (1878–80), and had his horse wounded at the action of Deh Sarak while escorting a convoy from Chara.
He took part in the second Bazar valley expedition and in the defence of Jagdallak. He accompanied General (Sir) Charles Gough's brigade to Sherpur in December 1879, and Lord Roberts's march from Kabul to Kandahar, and was engaged at the battle of 1 Sept. 1880. He was twice mentioned in despatches, and received the medal with two clasps, the bronze star, and the brevets of major (22 Nov. 1879) and of lieut.-colonel (2 March 1881). Gerard served in the Egyptian campaign of 1882, and at Alexandria fought in all the actions that followed the bombardment. He was appointed deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general of the cavalry division, and was present at the reconnaissance of 5 Aug. 1882, the battles of Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir, and the surrender of Arabi Pasha. In addition to being mentioned in despatches he was given the medal with clasp, the bronze star, the C.B., and the third class of the order of the Medjidie. He became major on 19 April 1884 and brevet-colonel on 2 March 1885.
Gerard had other qualities besides those of the successful soldier. In 1881 and again in 1885 he was despatched on secret missions to Persia. After serving as district staff officer of the first class in Bengal, he was selected to take charge of the tour which the Tsarevitch (afterwards Nicholas II) made in India (Dec. 1890–Feb. 1891), and the skill with which he discharged his duties resulted in his appointment in 1892 as British military attache at St. Petersburg. In the negotiations concerning the Pamirs boundary dispute he played a conspicuous part, and when in March 1895 an agreement was signed between Great Britain and Russia for the delimitation of their spheres of influence in central Asia, Gerard was sent out to the Pamirs at the head of a British commission. He met the Russian mission under general Shveikovsky in June at Lake Victoria, and from that point eastwards to the Chinese frontier demarcated the line which henceforth divided Russian from British interests. In 1896 he was nominated to the command of the Hyderabad contingent, and in 1899 was promoted to the command of a first-class district in Bengal. He was created C.S.I, in 1896, K.C.S.I. in 1897, and K.C.B. in 1902. He was promoted major-general on 1 April 1897, lieutenant-general on 12 Sept. 1900, and general on 29 Feb. 1904. On the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 he went out to Manchuria as chief British attache in General Kuropatkin's army; but his health succumbed to the rigours of the campaign, and he died of pneumonia at Irkutsk on 26 July 1905 on his way home from Kharbin. A requiem mass was sung at the catholic church of St. Catherine's, St. Petersburg, at which both the Tsar and King Edward VII were represented. The body was subsequently conveyed to Scotland, and buried at Airdrie on 8 September. He married on 19 Sept. 1888 Helen Adelaide, third daughter of Edward Richard Meade, a grandson of John Meade, first earl of Clanwilliam; she survived him with one son. Gerard was devoted to all forms of sport, especially big-game shooting, and recorded his experiences in 'Leaves from the Diaries of a Soldier and a Sportsman, 1865–1885' (1903).
[The Times, 28 July, 22 Aug., 9 Sept. 1905; Tablet, 12 Aug. 1905; Army List, 1905; Stonyhurst Magazine, October 1905; H. B. Hanna, The Second Afghan War, 1910, iii. 257, 511; private information from Father John Gerard, S.J.]