Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava

Basil Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava DL (April 6 1909 - March 25 1945) was a Conservative politician and soldier and was the eldest child and only son of the 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.

Early life and family

He was educated at Eton College and then at Balliol College, Oxford. Following his father's succession to the marquessate in 1918 he was known as the Earl of Ava.

At Eton he won the coveted Rosebery Prize, the highest possible distinction for a history pupil, when aged sixteen. At Oxford he was friends with among others Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford. He was also a contemporary and close friend of the poet John Betjeman. Betjeman wrote of his friend as "the dark, heavy-lidded companion" in his poem "Brackenbury Scholar of Balliol".

He was married to Maureen Constance Guinness, second daughter of the Hon. Arthur Ernest Guinness, himself the second son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, on July 3 1930 at St. Margaret's, Westminster. They had three children:

*Lady Caroline Maureen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (July 16 1931 - February 15 1996)

*Lady Perdita Maureen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (b. July 17 1934)

*Sheridan Frederick Terence Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (July 9 1938 - May 29 1988)

Political career and the war

After university Lord Dufferin pursued a career in politics. He made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in December 1931, aged just 22, during a debate on India. Only a few days later he was appointed to the Indian Franchise Committee which was to tour the country during its researches. After his return from India he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the 11th Marquess of Lothian, who was Under-Secretary of State for India, and then to the 3rd Viscount Halifax (later 1st Earl of Halifax) who was successively President of the Board of Education from 1932 to 1935, Secretary of State for War in 1935, and Lord Privy Seal from 1935 to 1937. Lord Dufferin was chairman of the Primrose League from 1932 to 1934, a Lord-in-Waiting to King George VI from 1936 to 1937 and was himself appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1937 before he resigned from the government in 1940 to join the British Army, refusing a post in the wartime coalition government of Winston Churchill.

He received a commission as a captain in the Royal Horse Guards in July 1940 but was released from the Army in 1941 to become Director of the Empire Division of the Ministry of Information. The following year he undertook a special mission abroad for the ministry, and rejoined the Army in 1944. Lord Dufferin was serving as a staff officer in Mandalay, Burma when he was killed in an ambush during a covert mission on March 25 1945, just a few weeks short of his 36th birthday.

Lord Dufferin was buried in the family burial ground of Campo Santo at Clandeboye, County Down where a Celtic cross stands to mark his loss and the earlier losses of the Dufferin family to war. His friend John Betjeman wrote the poem "In Memory of Basil, Marquess of Dufferin and Ava" in his memory.

His widow married twice after his death, first to Major Harry Alexander Desmond ('Kelpie') Buchanan MC in 1948 (divorced 1954) and second in 1955 to Judge John Cyril Maude QC (1901-1986), but against precedent always used the title she acquired from her first marriage. Maureen, Lady Dufferin died on May 3 1998 and is buried at Clandeboye.