Major General Francis Richard Gurney Hoare CB CBE (14 December 1879 – 31 May 1959) was a South African military commander. Born in Frognal, Hampstead, London, he was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the British Army in 1894. He served in the Anglo-Boer War, after which he settled in the Transvaal as a civil servant. Lt Col Hoare returned to South Africa after the war, and became a founder member of the South African Air Force on its formation in 1920. He was Staff Officer for Air Equipment at Defence Headquarters from 1921 to 1933.