First World War Andrew Hamilton Gault DSO (18 August 1882 – 28 November 1958) was a Canadian Army officer and British politician.

Returning to Quebec after World War II, Gault vigilantly defended his estate of Mont Saint-Hilaire from expropriation by mining interests and bequeathed it to McGill University to help ensure its preservation.

Matthew Hamilton Gault and Sir James Welsh Skelton, and when his father (the Cotton King of Canada) died in 1915, he, his mother and sister inherited just over $1.3 million each.

Lt.-Col. Francis Farquhar of the Coldstream Guards, military secretary to Canada's Governor-General, the Duke of Connaught, supported Gault's idea.

Between them, they made the decision to recruit men who had already seen military action, but who were not attached to any militia units, in order to hasten the regiment's departure for Europe.

[5] On 10 August 1914, through a charter embodied in a report of the Committee of the Privy Council of Canada, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came into being.

He rejoined the battalion on 27 April 1915 shortly before Lt.-Col. Buller was wounded: The leadership of Major Gault did much to strengthen the will and determination of the men.

Lieutenant Hugh Niven remarked in hindsight: "With Hamilton Gault there, nobody could think of retiring... Nobody knows why, but it gave everyone a tremendous lot of courage that nobody else in the world could give to the other regiments".

[7] The citation for his DSO appeared in The London Gazette in April 1915 and reads as follows: For conspicuous gallantry at St. Eloi on 27th February, 1915, in reconnoitring quite close to the enemy's position and obtaining information of great value for our attack which was carried out next day.

On the 28th February Major Gault assisted in the rescue of the wounded under most difficult circumstances whilst exposed to heavy fire.

[8]By the end of August 1914, after ten days of recruiting, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was a regiment 1,098 strong; only fifty of these had not seen action in the Boer Wars or with the British Army.

[11] Aside from Farquhar, Gault lost another close friend and fellow officer in Talbot Mercer Papineau, at the Battle of Passchendaele.

After retiring from the army in 1920, he stayed in England, moving to Hatch Court near Taunton, which he purchased from the aunt of his second wife, whom he 'quietly' married in 1922.

He was a progressive Conservative; his fair service to all classes was rewarded in the 1932 unanimous resolution of the Taunton Town Council to present him with the freedom of the borough.

He was promoted colonel in 1940 and brigadier in 1942, commanding a Canadian Army Reinforcement Holding Unit until ill health forced him to retire later that year.

Gault also introduced the daughter of his deceased fiancée, Patricia Blackader, to flying when he and his wife took her up in their Gypsy Moth in Lausanne.

After flying over Paris with disregard for aviation rules, the three narrowly escaped arrest on their return to Le Bourget airport.

In 1933, as part of a party that included Sir William Lindsay Everard, Amyas Eden Borton and Mr & Mrs Walter Leslie Runciman, they flew to Germany for a holiday, and were met by Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering.

Retiring after the Second World War to Quebec where he had grown up, Gault returned to the 2,200 acre Mont Saint-Hilaire estate he had purchased in 1913 from Colin A. M. Campbell, of Manoir Rouville.