On 4 May 1904 he married Ida Mary, daughter of George James Drummond of Swaylands House, Penshurst, by his wife Elizabeth Cecile Sophia (née Norman), a granddaughter of John Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland; they had issue and she died on 11 December 1966.

Their granddaughter Gilian Elfrida Astley Elfin Soames was the first wife of Francis Egerton Grosvenor, 6th Baron Ebury, now the 8th Earl of Wilton.

He served throughout the war, took part in operations in Cape Colony, south of the Orange River, in 1899; and in the advance to relieve Kimberley, during which he was severely wounded in the Battle of Magersfontein (December 1899).

[5] Following the end of this war he left Point Natal for British India on the SS Ionian in October 1902 with other officers and men of his battalion, which after arrival in Bombay was stationed in Sialkot in Umballa in Punjab.

[6] Promoted to captain on 15 February 1906,[7] he served as an aide-de-camp to Sir Bruce Hamilton, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Scottish Command, from 1912[8] to 1913.