His maternal grandparents were Sir George Chetwynd, 3rd Baronet and Lady Charlotte Augusta Hill (a daughter of Arthur Hill, 3rd Marquess of Downshire and Lady Maria Windsor, a daughter of the 5th Earl of Plymouth).
[3] Upon his father's death on 20 February 1898,[4] ten-year old Francis succeeded as the 9th Baronet Cotton of Combermere (created for his ancestor Sir Robert Cotton in the Baronetage of England in 1677) as well as the 4th Baron Combermere of Combermere (created for Stapleton Cotton in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1814 due to his services in the Battle of the Pyrenees, the Battle of Orthez and the Battle of Toulouse during the Peninsular War)[5] and the 4th Viscount Combermere of Bhurtpore (also created for Stapleton Cotton in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1827 for his success as Commander-in-Chief, India).
[3] In 1916, Combermere gained the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery (Special Reserve) and fought in World War I between 1916 and 1919, where he was wounded.
Thomas William Goff, MP for Roscommon and the former Dorothea FitzClarence, a daughter of the Rev.
[3] On 1 January 1927, Combermere remarried to his first wife's cousin, Constance Marie Katherine Drummond (d. 1968), the youngest daughter of Lt.-Col. Sir Francis Dudley Williams-Drummond (a younger son of Sir James Williams-Drummond, 3rd Baronet and Marguerite Violet Maude Agnew (the youngest daughter of Sir Andrew Agnew, 8th Baronet of Lochnaw).