John Standish Surtees Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort of Limerick, rose to command the 4th Grenadier Guards in 1917. Frequently wounded, he was a man of great courage and won the D.S.O. three times, and the VC in 1918. He became chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1938, a promotion which earned him jealousy among senior generals.
On the outbreak of World war II, Gort was similarly promoted to command the British Expeditionary Force in France. In face of the German Blitzkrieg, he held the British line intact and evacuated most of the British troops at Dunkirk. His conduct and tactics, particularly with regard to his French and Belgian allies, have been subject to scrutiny, with much said on either side. At all events he was passed over as Commander in Chief of home forces in favour of Sir Alan Brooke.
Gort later served as governor and C-in-C Gibraltar, then Malta, where his defence of the island won him promotion to field marshal. He was high commissioner in Palestine and Transjordan in 1944, but his health broke down and he died at Hamsterley hall in County Durham, the family seat, in 1946.
Gort's wife was a Surtees and during the 1930s, he restored the three houses on the Newcastle Quayside. Bessie Surtees House is No. 41.