Patrick Hore-Ruthven

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The Hon. Alexander Hardinge Patrick Hore-Ruthven (30 August 1913 – 24 December 1942) was a British soldier and poet. He was born in

Zara Eileen Pollok
.

Personal life

Hore-Ruthven studied at

Cambridge University in 1931 and met society beauty Pamela Fletcher while he was temporarily rusticated from Cambridge in 1932 for having bitten a policeman's nose.[1]

After graduating in 1933, he joined the Rifle Brigade, his grandfather's old regiment, and served in Malta for three years. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Territorial Army on 2 July 1933, he received a regular commission on 1 September 1934 (seniority 31 August 1933).[2][3] He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 August 1936.[4]

His father, Alexander Hore-Ruthven, was made

Grey, was born on 26 November 1939. After Hore-Ruthven's death, his widow was styled Viscountess Ruthven of Canberra.[5] She remarried in 1949, to Major Derek Cooper
.

Hore-Ruthven's father

Grey succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Gowrie.[citation needed
]

World War II

On the outbreak of the

Second World War in 1939, Hore-Ruthven was posted to Cairo. Pamela left their baby with her parents in Dublin and accompanied Hore-Ruthven to Cairo. There, she became friends with Freya Stark and Jacqueline Lampson. She also worked in Intelligence with the anti-Nazi Arab Brotherhood of Freedom, while Hore-Ruthven joined the newly formed SAS. He was promoted to captain on 31 August 1941.[6]

Pamela returned to Ireland in 1942 to give birth to their second son, Malise,[1] on 14 May 1942. Hore-Ruthven was Temporary Major when he died in Misurata Italian Hospital in Libya from wounds he received in a raid on a fuel dump near Tripoli. He died on 24 December 1942, and was buried in the war cemetery in Tripoli. A memorial fountain was constructed at Government House in Canberra.[citation needed]

Poetry

Hore-Ruthven wrote several

Lady Gowrie
. It was subsequently republished in London in 1944 under the title Desert Warrior: Poems. His collected letters were published in London in 1950 under the title Joy of Youth.

References

  1. ^ a b Obituary: Pamela Cooper, The Independent; retrieved 1 August 2013.
  2. ^ "No. 33958". The London Gazette. 7 July 1933. p. 4556.
  3. ^ "No. 34083". The London Gazette. 31 August 1934. p. 5522.
  4. ^ "No. 34319". The London Gazette. 1 September 1936. p. 5661.
  5. ^ "No. 37155". The London Gazette. 29 June 1945. p. 3409.
  6. ^ "No. 35262". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 August 1941. p. 5086.

Sources

External links

  • Picture of the memorial fountain from the ACT Heritage Library