Simon Fraser, 14th Lord Lovat

Major-General Simon Joseph Fraser, 14th Lord Lovat and 3rd Baron Lovat, (25 November 1871 – 18 February 1933 Alastair Thomas Joseph Fraser (husband of Lady Sibyl Grimston, daughter of James Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam), Margaret Mary Fraser (wife of Brig.-Gen. Archibald Stirling and mother of Bill and Sir David Stirling) and Muriel Mary Rose Fraser, who became a Catholic nun. His father served as Lord Lieutenant of Inverness and aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria from 1883 to 1887. he was an active member of the Oxford University polo team and left with an MA.

Military career Lord Lovat was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and promoted lieutenant in 1890, but transferred as a lieutenant into the 1st Life Guards in 1894. In 1897, he resigned from the Regular Army and joined a volunteer battalion of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

Boer War and Lovat Scouts In late 1899, Fraser raised the Lovat Scouts for service in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and from February 1900 served as the scouts' second-in-command with the rank of captain, in charge of the mounted infantry. For the Lovat Scouts, he chose the best marksmen he could find and the perfect commander in Andrew David Murray. The corps arrived in South Africa in early 1900, and was attached to the Black Watch, but was disbanded in July 1901 while two companies (the 113th and 114th) were formed for the Imperial Yeomanry. Lord Lovat continued as second-in-command of the two companies until Colonel Murray was killed in a night action with a Boer Commando on 19/20 September 1901, after which Fraser took command of the regiment himself (now aged 29), and remained in command until the end of the war.

The war ended in June 1902, and Lord Lovat relinquished his commission with the Imperial Yeomanry and was granted the honorary rank of major in the army on 11 July 1902. He returned to the United Kingdom with the corps on the SS Tintagel Castle the following month, arriving to a public welcome in Inverness in late August. For his service in the war, he was mentioned in despatches (including the final despatch by Lord Kitchener dated 23 June 1902), was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1900, and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in October 1902.

After the end of the Second Boer War, the remaining two companies returned to the United Kingdom and were disbanded. The unit was reformed the following year, consisting of two regiments, titled the 1st and 2nd Lovat Scouts. From these scouts a sharpshooter unit was formed and formally became the British Army's first sniper unit.

Lord Lovat was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1903 by King Edward VII. He later served as aide-de-camp to King George V. He became a Rhodes Trustee in 1917, the same year as Rudyard Kipling.

In 1919, Lovat was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and was appointed Chairman of the Army Forestry Commission, serving from 1919 to 1927.

Personal life

In February 1910, Lord Lovat was rumoured to be engaged to an American heiress, Edith Clark, a daughter of Charles S. Clark of New York and Grosvenor Square, London. However, on 15 October 1910, Lovat married the Hon. Laura Lister (1892–1965), the second daughter of Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale and, his first wife, Charlotte Monkton Tennant (a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet, MP for Peebles and Selkirk). Among the Fraser family estates was Beaufort Castle in Scotland (rebuilt by his father in the late 1870s) and 181,800 acres of land.

Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat (1911–1995), who married Rosamond Delves Broughton, the only daughter of Sir Henry Broughton, 11th Baronet, in 1938. and Secretary of State for Air who married author Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham, a daughter of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford and Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, in 1956. They divorced in 1977. After his death in 1944, she married Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet in 1946. Mary Diana Rose Fraser (1926–1940), who died at age 14. and was succeeded by his eldest son Simon as the 15th Lord Lovat (known as the 17th Lord), who distinguished himself during the D-Day landings at Normandy in June 1944. Andrew Roy Matthew Fraser (1952–1994) (husband of Lady Charlotte Anne Greville, a daughter of David Greville, 8th Earl of Warwick).

Through his daughter Magdalen, he was a grandfather of three, including John Joseph Nicholas Scott, 5th Earl of Eldon (1937–2017) and Simon Peter Scott (b. 1939).

Through his son Sir Hugh, he was a grandfather of six, including Rebecca Rose Fraser (b. 1957), Flora Fraser (b. 1958), Benjamin Hugh Fraser (b. 1961), Natasha Fraser (b. 1963), Damian Fraser (b. 1964), and Orlando Fraser (b. 1967).