Scottish landowner and soldier (1887?1948)
Sir Iain Colquhoun, 7th Baronet
, 29th Laird of Luss,
[1]
KT
,
DSO
& Bar,
FRSE
(20 June 1887 – 12 November 1948), was a Scottish landowner and
British Army
soldier during the
First World War
.
Military career
[
edit
]
During the First World War, Colquhoun served in the
Scots Guards
. In 1914, the opposing troops on the
Western Front
had unofficially observed a
Christmas truce
. The following year, however, when the 28-year-old Captain Colquhoun agreed to a German officer's request for a short truce on Christmas Day, lasting about an hour, he was brought before a
court-martial
.
[2]
[3]
He was defended by
Raymond Asquith
, son of
Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith
(the Prime Minister was Colquhoun's wife's uncle).
[2]
On 17 January 1916, he was found guilty after a five-hour trial, but received the lightest possible sentence, a reprimand.
[2]
The sentence was remitted shortly afterwards by General Sir
Douglas Haig
, as Commander-in-Chief of the
British Expeditionary Force
, in view of Colquhoun's former distinguished conduct in the field.
[4]
By 1918 he was Commanding Officer of
2/4th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment
in
59th (2nd North Midland) Division
. When the
German spring offensive
opened on 21 March 1918, the division's forward defences were quickly overrun. 2/4th Leicesters had only just come out of the line after 24 hours of continuous trench duty, but were sent straight back up to assist in the defence. The battalion could get no further forward than the rear of the Battle Zone where the 'line' was no more than a yet-to-be-dug trench marked out with the turf removed and no
barbed wire
. The men extended along the line even though they were completely exposed in the open. Under the inspiring leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun and Regimental Sergeant-Major 'African Joe' Withers, the battalion held off the Germans for the rest of the day, with modest casualties.
[5]
[6]
Colquhoun was wounded during the war and awarded the
Distinguished Service Order
(1916) and Bar (1918) and a
Mention in Dispatches
. After the war he was Honorary Colonel of the 9th Battalion
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
and
Glasgow University Officer Training Corps
, and President of the Dunbartonshire Territorial Association.
[7]
Post-war
[
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]
He was
Lord Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire
from 1919 until his death,
Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
in 1932, 1940 and 1941 and Lord Rector of
Glasgow University
from 1934 to 1937.
[8]
He was created a
Knight of the Thistle
in 1937.
[8]
He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
in 1938 and resigned in 1942.
[9]
Family
[
edit
]
Colquhoun was the son and heir of Sir Alan John Colquhuon, 6th baronet, and his first wife, Justine Henrietta Kennedy.
[10]
He succeeded his father as the 7th baronet in 1910, as Sir Iain Colquhoun of Luss and Chief of the Clan Colquhoun. Sir Iain married Geraldine Bryde (Dinah) Tennant (a granddaughter of
Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet
) on 10 February 1915, and they had two sons (the elder succeeded his father as 9th baronet) and three daughters. One of their daughters,
Fiona
, a
Segrave Trophy
winner, married the
8th Earl of Arran
[11]
(1910?1983), an Irish peer; the present
9th Earl
is their son.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"Sir Iain Colquhoun of Luss (1887?1948) | Art UK"
.
artuk.org
. Retrieved
5 June
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
Alastair Macdonald (24 December 2014).
"How Christmas Truce led to court martial"
.
Reuters
.
- ^
Crocker, Terri Blom (2015).
The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, and the First World War
. University Press of Kentucky. p. 249.
ISBN
9780813166162
.
- ^
'The Private Papers of Douglas Haig 1914-1919', edited by Robert Blake (Pub. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952), P.124-126.
- ^
Middlebrook, pp. 251?2.
- ^
Edmonds, pp. 228?34.
- ^
Burke's
.
- ^
a
b
"Sir Iain Colquhoun 7th Baronet"
.
University of Glasgow
.
- ^
"Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783-2002"
(PDF)
. Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 January 2013
. Retrieved
27 October
2015
.
- ^
Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage
pg. 480
- ^
Steven, Alasdair (10 June 2013).
"Obituary: Countess Arran, power-boat champion"
.
The Scotsman
.
Johnston Press
.
References
[
edit
]
- Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage,
various editions.
- Brig-Gen Sir James E. Edmonds,
History of the Great War: Military Operations, France and Belgium 1918
, Vol I,
The German March Offensive and its Preliminaries
, London: Macmillan, 1935/Imperial War Museum and Battery Press, 1995,
ISBN
0-89839-219-5
.
- Martin Middlebrook,
The Kaiser's Battle, 21 March 1918: The First Day of the German Spring Offensive
, London: Allen Lane, 1978/Penguin, 1983,
ISBN
0-14-017135-5
.
External links
[
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]