Ronald Ferguson

Major Ronald Ivor Ferguson (October 10, 1931 - March 16, 2003) was Polo manager to the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales, and the father of Sarah Ferguson who married Prince Andrew.

He was the son of Andrew Henry Ferguson (1899-1966) and his wife Marian Montagu-Douglas-Scott (1908-1996), and was born in London. He attended Eton College and Sandhurst, and entered the Life Guards, serving with them in Egypt, Aden, and Cyprus.

He married his first wife Susan Wright, on January 17, 1956. They had two daughters, Sarah, and Jane. They divorced in 1974.

His interest in polo brought him into contact with the Royal Family, and through this connection his daughter Sarah met Prince Andrew.

He retired in 1969.

He married his second wife, Susan Deptford in 1975. They had three children, Andrew, Alice, and Elizabeth.

In his later years his reputation was tarnished by his involvement in a number of sexual scandals, being photographed leaving a massage parlour, and being named as a paramour in Lesley Player's "tell-all" memoires.

In 1994 he published his autobiography The Galloping Major.

He suffered from prostate cancer, and died, of a heart attack, at The Hampshire Clinic, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.