Brigadier Milton Fowler Gregg VC PC OC CBE MC ED CD (10 April 1892 – 13 March 1978) was a Canadian military officer and a First World War recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. In later life, he was a Member of the Canadian Parliament, cabinet minister, academic, soldier and diplomat.
Gregg was born in 1892 in Mountain Dale, Kings County, New Brunswick, the son of Clarissa E.(Myles) and George Lord Gregg. During the early stages of World War I he enlisted in the Canadian Army with The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada in September 1914 while still studying at Acadia University. He graduated with a Master of Arts in 1916.
At the age of eighteen Gregg joined the 8th New Brunswick Hussars militia regiment. Gregg served during the First World War as a sergeant in the medical corps and later as an officer of The Royal Canadian Regiment. During combat on the Western Front in 1917, his actions earned him the Military Cross and in 1918 further valour added a bar to the Cross. Near Cambrai, Nord, France on 28 September 1918 his actions during the Battle of the Canal du Nord earned him the Victoria Cross. The citation for Gregg's Victoria Cross reads:
On the evening of 24 December 1978, Gregg's medal set was stolen from the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum in London, Ontario. The medal set which had been placed on permanent loan to the museum by his widow Erica Deichmann Gregg included the Victoria Cross, the Order of Canada in the grade of Officer and the Military Cross with one Bar.
From 1934 until 1939, Gregg was the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Commons. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Gregg served overseas for two years with the West Nova Scotia Regiment and then commanded officer training centres at various military facilities in Canada and retired with the rank of brigadier in 1943. In 1944, Gregg was appointed the commanding officers of CANLOAN officers at Sussex Military Camp prior to their deployment to the British Army.[2] He was later named the first honorary president of the CANLOAN Army Officers' Association, a veterans association of CANLOAN officers.[3]
In 1944, Gregg was appointed President of the University of New Brunswick, serving in that position until 1947 when he was elected to Parliament as Liberal member for the York-Sunbury riding. Gregg served in the cabinets of Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent for almost 10 years as the Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Veterans Affairs, and Minister of Labour.
Defeated in the 1957 election, Gregg went on to become the United Nations representative in Iraq, the UNICEF administrator in Indonesia, and the Canadian High Commissioner in Georgetown, British Guiana. He retired in 1968. He died on 13 March 1978 and is buried at Snider Mountain Baptist Church Cemetery [4] in Snider Mountain, New Brunswick.