page_title: Arthur Lyon Fremantle
section_title: Later life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Arthur Lyon Fremantle / Later life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: The James Bell syndicate's cutter Thistle (George Lennox Watson design, built in 1887 at the David &amp; William Henderson shipyard, Glasgow). She was a challenger for the America's Cup in 1887, and is pictured here in the first race on September 27th, which she lost to the New York Yacht Club's defender Volunteer.
context_page_description: General Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle GCMG CB KStJ was a British Army officer and a notable British witness to the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Whilst holding the rank of "Captain and Lieutenant Colonel" he spent three months in North America, travelling through parts of the Confederate States of America and the Union. Contrary to popular belief, Colonel Fremantle was not an official representative of the United Kingdom; instead, he was something of a tourist.
context_section_description: Fremantle married shortly after his return to Great Britain, and served with his regiment until 1880, when he was placed on half pay after 28 years of service without seeing any active duty. The following year, however, he was promoted to the rank of major general and assigned as aide-de-camp to Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British Army.
  The United Kingdom was upset by the disasters suffered by the Anglo-Egyptian forces contending with the Mahdist army in the Sudan (Battle of El Obeid; 1st Battle of El Teb). Fremantle was sent to the Sudan, temporarily serving as garrison commander at the port of Suakin.
  Fremantle followed General Graham in his inland raid when he intended to crush the Mahdist Osman Digna. Fremantle was in command of the Brigade of Guards and as such took part in the harsh Battle of Tamai.
  After the fall of Khartoum and the departure of the British from the Sudan, Fremantle stayed for a brief time in Cairo, then returned to England in 1886, serving in the War Office as Deputy Adjutant-General for Militia, Yeomanry and volunteers. In February 1893 he became Commander-in-Chief, Scotland, a post he held for less than a year.
  He ended his career on a high note by being appointed to the office of Governor of Malta in January 1894. During his time on the island, Fremantle became a popular governor, presiding over political decisions such as the matter of mixed and non-Catholic marriages, and the issue of the payment of reparations to the Maltese ecclesiastical authorities from the Napoleonic Wars. In 1897, Fremantle renamed the line of fortifications that was under construction the Victoria Lines to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. In November 1898, he hosted a visit to the island by the German Emperor, Kaiser William II, who arrived in Valletta on board his personal yacht, the Hohenzollern, upon which Governor Fremantle joined the Kaiser for dinner.
  In 1899, after his term in office ended, Lieutenant-General Arthur Fremantle returned to England. Fremantle was appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John on 7 March 1900.
  A member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, General Fremantle died at the age of 65 in the Squadron's headquarters in Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight from complications of asthma on 25 September 1901. On the centenary of his funeral, a ceremony marking the restoration of his grave in Woodvale Cemetery, near Brighton, was conducted by his descendants and by Civil War re-enactors from the United States.
caption: From the RYS terrace in Cowes castle, Fremantle certainly beheld the cutter Thistle training for the next America's Cup
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