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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 176

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1902 (2/Lt: A. E. Balfour, Gordon Hdrs.), extremely fine

Alec Edward Balfour was born on 4 May 1880 at North Mymms, Hertfordshire, the son of City broker, Robert Drummond Balfour. After a brief career following in his father's footsteps, Balfour was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Bedford Regiment (The Supplement to the Army & Navy Gazette, 16 February 1916, refers). He soon transferred to the Gordon Highlanders and served during the Great War as a Captain in the 8th Battalion, being posted to France in 1918. Following the Armistice, Balfour travelled to Musselburgh and stood as the National Democratic and Official Coalition Candidate for the Edinburgh East Parliamentary Seat (The Midlothian Journal, 29 November 1918, refers). His personal manifesto was little short of inspirational:

'Captain Balfour and the Soldiers.

Captain Alec E. Balfour, Gordon Highlanders, in his election address, claims that he knows the feelings of our fighting men in regard to what the country should do for them on their return to civil life. He will make it, he says, his first and constant business to see to it that they and their dependents should receive recognition and justice in the fullest and most liberal manner. Germany and her allies must be subjected to conditions which will make it impossible for them to repeat the hideous crime of this deliberately designed, devastation world-war. The magnificent services rendered by women in the country's greatest need justifies the belief that their advent in the world of politics will have an incalculably wholesome effect on our national life. All future legislation should be based on the recognition by the State of the equal value to the State of the male and female citizen' (The Scotsman, 30 November 1918, refers).

Notwithstanding these fine words, Balfour came runner-up in the 31st Parliamentary Election held on 14 December 1918; despite winning 5,136 votes (37.8%), he was unable to unseat the incumbent Liberal James Myles Hogge, who garnered considerable popularity amongst ex-servicemen, being President of the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers. Having been born in Edinburgh, educated at Moray College and Edinburgh University, and worked as a teacher, preacher and slum worker in the Scottish capital, Hogge proved a formidable political adversary.

On 29 March 1919, Balfour married Marie Amelie Louise Helene Robertine d'Harcourt, youngest daughter of the late Marquis d'Harcourt-Olonde. The couple went on to have three children, the eldest of whom, Lieutenant Roy A. E. Balfour, 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, was killed in action at Salerno on 17 September 1943. Three years later, Balfour divorced his wife on the grounds of desertion, she likely returning home to 11 Rue Constantine, Paris. He later moved from Grosvenor Place to 52 Lennox Gardens, London, S.W.1., and died on 26 April 1970; sold with copied research.


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Sold for
£230

Starting price
£110