Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart Ross, 9th Baronet of Balnagown, Easter Ross (4 April 1872 – 29 June 1942) was a swashbuckling and often irascible nobleman, inventor and commercial entrepreneur who is today best remembered as the inventor of the innovative, often controversial straight-pull actioned Ross Rifle. Initially used by his own Machine Gun Battery in the Second Boer War, the Ross rifle was later mass-produced for the Canadian army during World War I. Sporting rifles bearing the Ross name were also popular for a time after the First World War, as was the .280 [approximately 7 mm] Ross sporting rifle cartridge. Sir Charles Ross inherited the Baronetcy of Balnagown when he was aged 11. For a time, Ross was said to have been Britain's largest landowner, possessing Scottish lands extending to an estimated 366,000 acres (1,480 km²), with 3,000 tenants. At one point, in an attempt to evade United Kingdom taxation on the income from his arms manufacturing, Ross declared his Easter Ross, Scotland estate of Balnagown to be a territory of the United States of America, which led to his being branded an outlaw for a time by the British. Ross was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge and was known as a capable sharpshooter and big game hunter. Ross married thrice: first to Winifred Berens (marriage dissolved in 1897); then to Patricia Ellison, who divorced him in 1930; and, in 1938, to his American secretary Dorothy Mercado, who inherited Balnagown Castle on Ross's death. Balnagown Castle, not far from the north shore of the Cromarty Firth near Invergordon, and adjacent part of the once-extensive Ross estate of Balnagown have been owned since the 1980s by billionaire businessman and Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, who has faithfully restored the castle regardless of expense. He also underwrote the production and publication of the most comprehensive popular account of Sir Charles Ross's life and achievements, and his family's history - Von Schulenberg, Fritz : Balnagown: Ancestral Home of the Clan Ross - A Scottish Castle Through Five Centuries (Brompton Press (formerly Harrods Publishing) 1998)
References
- Phillips, Roger F., Francois J. Dupuis and John A. Chadwick, The Ross Rifle Story (ISBN 0973241608)
- Hartzell, Scott Taylor. (Nov. 26, 2003) "Locals saw Sir Charles as brilliant, but 'a stinker'". St Petersburg Times.
External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ross, Sir Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ross, Charles; Ross, Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart (full); Balnagowan, Ninth Baronet of (title) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | inventor of Ross Rifle |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 29, 1942 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | St. Petersburg, Florida, United States of America |
