[2] Arbuthnot entered the British Army on 25 March 1856 as an ensign in the Rifle Brigade, going to India to fight the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
He transferred into the 14th Hussars, attending Staff college and holding a number of appointments in the 1860s.
[2] While in Abyssinia, he collected five Ethiopian objects, namely "three inscribed horn beakers and a leather-bound Coptic bible and cross" were repatriated to Ethiopia in 2021,[3] in what has been called "the single most significant heritage restitution in Ethiopia's history.
Alice Charlotte Pitt-Rivers (1841–1865), daughter of George Pitt-Rivers, 4th Baron Rivers of Sudeley Castle and Lady Susan Georgiana Leveson-Gower (daughter of the 1st Earl Granville).
[1] After her death, he married Selina Moncreiffe (1851–1877), daughter of Sir Thomas Moncreiffe, 7th Baronet, and Lady Louisa Hay-Drummond (eldest daughter of the 11th Earl of Kinnoull), on 20 July 1869.