Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava

Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava DSO PC (February 26 1875 – July 21 1930) was a British soldier and politician and the fourth son of the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.

Distinguished soldier

Born in Ottawa in 1875 during his father's term as Governor General of Canada, he joined the Army in 1897. He served with the 9th Lancers during the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1901 and was present at the engagements at Belmont, Enslin, Modder River, Magersfonstein, the relief of Kimberley, the advance to Bloemfontein and Pretoria and the subsequent fighting in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony and Cape Colony, where he was badly wounded on Christmas Eve 1900. Twice mentioned in despatches, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order before retiring from the Army in 1913 with the rank of captain.

He was married on June 10 1908 to Brenda Woodhouse, only daughter of Major Robert Woodhouse, of Orford House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. They had two children:

*Basil Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (April 6 1909 – March 25 1945)

*Lady Veronica Brenda Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (December 13 1910 – ?), who married firstly Roger Antony Hornby, second son of Charles Harry St. John Hornby, of Shelley House, Chelsea and Chantemarle, Dorset, on December 17 1931 (div. 1940) and has issue by the marriage; secondly Squadron Leader E. H. Maddick of the Royal Air Force in October 1941 (div. 1947); thirdly Captain Thomas Andrew Hussey CBE of the Royal Navy on June 15 1947 (div. 1956); and fourthly to Peter Rebuck Wolfe in July 1956.

Great War and later career

After leaving the Army he was appointed military secretary to the Governor General of Australia, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson (later Viscount Novar), who was his brother-in-law. Following the outbreak of the First World War he rejoined his old regiment the 9th Lancers and was seriously wounded when serving on the Western Front in October 1914 and was subsequently transferred to the Grenadier Guards. He was again seriously wounded in the autumn of 1915 having returned to duty for only three days. He served as a staff captain in the Guards Division in 1916 and was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps as an instructor in 1918. After the war he was president of the Ulster Ex-Servicemen's Association.

He succeeded to the marquessate on the death of his elder brother Terence Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 2nd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava on February 7 1918. His eldest brother Archibald, Earl of Ava had been killed in action at Waggon Hill in the Boer War in January 1900, while his other brother, Lord Basil Blackwood, had perished in an attack on German trenches in July 1917.

Lord Dufferin was elected to the Senate of the Northern Ireland Parliament in 1921, where he served as Speaker from 1921 to 1930, and was sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland on September 16 1921 and of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland on December 12 1922. He was an RNVR (Royal Naval Reserve) aide-de-camp to King George V and was appointed Vice-Admiral of Ulster by the King in 1923, a post which his father had held.

On July 21 1930 Lord Dufferin was flying with a party of friends from Berck, a small village in France near Le Touquet, back to England when the plane crashed outside Meopham, Kent, killing all those on board. The others in the party were Sir Edward Simons Ward, Bt.; Viscountess Ednam, the wife of Viscount Ednam (heir to the Earl of Dudley and a daughter of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland); and Mrs Loeffler, a well-known society hostess, along with the pilot, Lt. Col. George Lochart Henderson and the assistant pilot, Mr C. D. Shearing. Lord Dufferin was buried in the family burial ground at Clandeboye, County Down.

Lord Dufferin's widow married again after his death on January 28 1932, to Henry Charles Somers Augustus Somerset (1874–1945), the only son of Lord Henry Somerset (himself the brother of Henry Somerset, 9th Duke of Beaufort), and died on July 17 1946.