Patrick Hore-Ruthven

The Hon. 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.

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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.^[1]

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).^[2][3] He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 August 1936.^[4]

His father, Alexander Hore-Ruthven, was made Baron Gowrie in 1935 and 1st Earl of Gowrie in 1945.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[5] She remarried in 1949, to Major Derek Cooper.

Hore-Ruthven's father Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie died in May 1955, whereupon his elder son Grey succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Gowrie.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[6]

Pamela returned to Ireland in 1942 to give birth to their second son, Malise,^[1] on 14 May 1942. Hore-Ruthven was Temporary Major when he died in Misurata Italian Hospital in Libya from wounds he received in a raid on a fuel dump near Tripoli. He died on 24 December 1942, and was buried in the war cemetery in Tripoli. A memorial fountain was constructed at Government House in Canberra.^{[citation needed]}

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Hore-Ruthven wrote several war poems that were published in Australian and English newspapers. A collection of his poems was published posthumously in Australia in 1943 under the title The Happy Warrior, with a preface written by his mother Lady Gowrie. It was subsequently republished in London in 1944 under the title Desert Warrior: Poems. His collected letters were published in London in 1950 under the title Joy of Youth.

• Papers of Lord Gowrie, relating to the death of Patrick Hore-Ruthven in 1942, nla.gov.au; accessed 11 June 2017.

• Picture of the memorial fountain from the ACT Heritage Library