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

His grandfather, a descendant of the 18th-century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, "was the cultured and worldly 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava", who served as the Viceroy and Governor-General of India.

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, serving until his resignation in 1940.

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.

Lord Dufferin was serving with the Indian Field Broadcasting Unit on 25 March 1945 when he was filmed demanding the surrender of Japanese troops who were sheltered in a tunnel; the film then captured Lord Dufferin's death when a Japanese mortar shell landed on the unit, just a few weeks short of his 36th birthday.

[1] 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 Maude QC (1901–1986), but against precedent always used the title she acquired from her first marriage.