Ralph Gerard Alexander Hamilton, only son of 10th Lord Belhaven and Stenton, was born on 22nd February 1883 and was educated at Eton and Sandhurst.

At the outbreak of the First World War, he was commanding the Essex Horse Artillery but finding that this Territorial regiment was not likely to see imminent active service, he managed to become appointed as a temporary interpreter with the 7th Division and was soon involved in the First Battle of Ypres.

On 23rd October 1914, he was badly bruised when a shell blew him from his horse and he was repatriated back to England.

He was transferred to the 2nd Life Guards on 9th December 1915 and returned to France in January, but three months later, as his temporary appointment was over, he returned to England and joined the Reserve Regiment at Windsor.

He then took command of "C" Battery 106th Bde, Royal Field Artillery, which had landed in France in September 1914. From then on, apart from several periods of leave, he served continuously on the Western Front – seeing action in all three Battles of Ypres; the Battle of Loos; the Somme Offensive; and the fighting around Messines – during which he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

He was killed near Amiens on 31st March 1918 and is buried in Rouvrel Communal Cemetery. The last entry in his very detailed diary is a copy of the letter sent to his wife, Grizel, dated two days before he died, in which he requested that she send a long list of personal items “as I have lost everything I possess”.