Patrick Hore-Ruthven

Alexander Hardinge Patrick Hore-Ruthven (30 August 1913 – 24 December 1942) was a British soldier and poet. He was born in Quetta, British India (present-day Pakistan), the sole surviving child of Alexander Hore-Ruthven and Zara Eileen Pollok.

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.

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). He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 August 1936.

His father, Alexander Hore-Ruthven, was made Baron Gowrie in 1935 and 1st Earl of Gowrie in 1945. Hore-Ruthven married Pamela Fletcher on 4 January 1939 at Westminster Abbey, after their marriage was initially delayed due to a mutual lack of money. Her father, the Reverend Arthur Henry Fletcher officiated. Their first son, Grey, was born on 26 November 1939. After Hore-Ruthven's death, his widow was styled Viscountess Ruthven of Canberra.

She remarried in 1949, to Major Derek Cooper. Hore-Ruthven's father Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie died in May 1955, whereupon Patrick Hore-Ruthven's son Grey succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Gowrie.

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.

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