Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby

Frederick Edward Grey Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby GCB GCVO PC (16 September 1867 – 20 October 1935), was a British soldier and courtier.

Ponsonby was the second son of General Sir Henry Ponsonby and his wife the Hon. Mary Elizabeth (née Bulteel). A member of a junior branch of the Ponsonby family, he was the grandson of General Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby and the great-grandson of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough. Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, was his younger brother.

His godparents were the Emperor Frederick III of Germany and Victoria, the Empress Frederick, which made him godbrother to Emperor Wilhelm II.

Ponsonby was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 11 February 1888, and promoted to lieutenant on 2 July 1892. He was promoted to captain on 15 February 1899, and served with the 3rd Battalion of his regiment in the Second Boer War. Wounded at the end of the war, he returned to the United Kingdom in April 1902. He was later promoted to Major and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, and served in the First World War. He wrote the standard history: The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914-1918. 3 vols. Published in 1920.

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