CHAPTER XIV   [pp. 215-222]

SIR ALEXANDER DUFF OF DELGATY AND HIS SONS,
THE FIFTH EARL FIFE AND HON. GEORGE DUFF

[This chapter headed by an engraving of ‘DELGATY CASTLE’]

GENERAL THE HON. SIR ALEXANDER DUFF, G.C.H. (Grand Cross of Hanover), brother and heir-presumptive to the fourth Earl of Fife, was the second son of Alexander, third Earl, by his wife, Mary Skene of Skene. He was born in 1777, and when only five or six years old was sent to Duff House to the care of his uncle, the second Lord Fife, who, having no children, wished to take charge of his nephews. It must have been a little hard for their mother to part with them at this very early age. Two of her letters on the subject are to be found in chapter xii., and the letters of their father to his brother frequently end with a message or a line ‘to the boys.’ When they were a little older, their uncle sent them to the then well-known school kept by Dr. Chapman at Inchdrewer.  Alexander Duff entered the Army as Ensign in the 65th Berkshire Regiment of Foot in May 1793, being then sixteen, and joined his regiment at Gibraltar. Having been first promoted to a lieutenancy with captain’s powers in

an Independent Company in January 1794, he was transferred in 1795 as Captain to the 88th (1) Regiment, and in the March following appears as Major in the same regiment. The 88th was then newly raised, and family interest procured him the majority at the age of eighteen. He served in Flanders until the return of the army in the end of the same year. In April 1798 he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the 88th, and went to the East Indies, where he remained until his regiment was ordered to Egypt to take part in the expedition under Sir David Baird which landed at Kosseir in June 1801, crossed the desert, and, embarking on the Nile, descended to Cairo and thence to Alexandria, which was reached a few days before its surrender to General Hutchinson. In 1806 his regiment formed part of the expedition for the reduction of La Plata, Montevideo, and other places in South America, which started February 24, 1807, and he commanded the centre column in the attack on Buenos Ayres on July 5, 1807. Here he had the misfortune to be obliged to surrender with his detachment, and appeared as a witness at the court-martial held in the following year (2) to inquire into the conduct of Brigadier-General White locke, who was accused of ‘acting contrary to instructions, of exposing his army to fire from the houses, by causing them to march through the streets without having previously reduced the town, of not being present personally at the attack, and of neglecting to keep up communications with his main body.’ It was, moreover, proved that ‘after concluding a shameful treaty, he went back to his headquarters without making any serious attempt to learn what had become of his column on the right.'(3) General Whitelocke was cashiered, but Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Duff, who gave evidence as to the circumstances which led to his own surrender, was not included in the censure.(4)

General Whitelocke had made a hopeless muddle of the whole expedition. W. F. Lord, in his Lost Possessions of Great Britain, says:,
‘Whitelocke seemed resolved on failure. Although he had made his attack at his leisure from the impregnable position of Montevideo, he had sent his troops into action so ill provided that many of them had eaten nothing for 24 hours before the fight began. He had chosen the mode of fighting in which the Spaniards excelled. … When his fine army (11,000 seasoned British troops) and his capable subordinates had wrested a victory in spite of the unparalleled blunders of their chief, there remained only one more step to take, and he took it. Victory being placed in his grasp, he declined to seize it. Small wonder

(1) The Connaught Rangers.
(2) At Chelsea, January 28, 1808.
(3) Gentleman’s Magazine.
(4) It is a curious circumstance that the president of the court-martial was Sir James Duff of the Foot Guards, first cousin to Colonel Alexander. See chapter xxxiv.

FAMILY OF GENERAL ALEXANDER DUFF [page] 217

if the remains of his splendid force chalked up on the street walls: “General Whitelocke is a fool or a traitor, or both.”

Alexander Duff was promoted Colonel in the same year, and in 1810 went on the halfpay list of the 4th Foot. He became Major-General in June 1811, and Lieutenant-General in 1821.
In 1816 he was presented with a sword by the officers of the 88th who had served under him.
He became Colonel of the 92nd Foot in September 1823, and in the year 1828 he appears for the first time in the Army List as Honourable, his brother having in the previous year been made a peer of the United Kingdom in addition to the Irish title.(1) He was transferred to the colonelcy of the 37th Foot in July 1831.

In 1833 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Hanover, which did not carry knighthood, but he was knighted by King William IV. in the following year. He reached the rank of full General in the third year of Queen Victoria’s reign (1839).

Sir Alexander married, in March [16th] 1812, Anne, youngest daughter of James Stein of Kilbagie, and had three sons and two daughters:
1. The eldest son, born in Edinburgh 1813, died a few months later.
2. JAMES, born 1814 [died 1879]; M.P. for Banff, and afterwards fifth Lord Fife.
3. GEORGE SKENE, born 1816; M.P. for the Elgin Burghs.
4. CATHERINE, born 1820; married, in 1841, John Lewis Ricardo of an old Jewish family, and had one son, Algernon Lewis, died 1871, a Captain in the Scots Guards. Catherine died 1869.
5. LOUISA TOLLEMACHE, born 1824, died 1864 ; married, 1848, Sir Richard Brooke of Norton Priory, Runcorn. She had the following children:
      Richard and Evelyn, twins, born 1850.
      Basil and Mabel, twins, born 1852.
      Jocelyn, born 1854.
      Winifred, born 1856.
      Victor, born 1857.
      Octavius, born 1859.
      Lionel, born 1860.
      Reginald, born 1861.
      Lilian, born 1864.
Sir Richard married again, after the death of Lady Louisa, and there were two more daughters.

(1) Though he had, since 1811, when his father succeeded to the earldom of Fife, had a right to this courtesy title.

Additional information on Alexander Duff in The Book of the Duffs.

Engraved plate opposite page 218: ‘General Sir Alexander Duff. From the engraving by Zobel after portrait by Châtelain.’

Page 219: Alexander Duff was still in England in 1805, as a letter is quoted on page 219 which he wrote at Eastbourne on 13 December 2024

Page 195: By his father’s Will, Alexander Duff was left £4000

He died 21 March 2025 and was buried in the family Masoleum at Duff House, Banff, Scotland

Chapter XII (pp. 191-203) concerns his father (Alexander Duff (1731-1811), third Earl Fife.
Chapter XIII (pp. 204-214) deals with his brother James (1776- 1857) who became the fourth Earl Fife.