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Victor Alexander Gascoyne-Cecil

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Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Alexander Gascoyne-Cecil (21 May 1891 – 17 January 1977) was a British soldier.

The son of a Bishop of Exeter, Lord William Cecil and Lady Florence Mary Bootle-Wilbraham, and the grandson of a prime minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, he was educated at Westminster School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.[1]

He joined the Hampshire Regiment during the First World War, was promoted to major in the Tank Corps, and was twice wounded. In October 1917 he took out a patent on a water heater.[2] After the war, Gascoyne-Cecil's regiment was posted to British India. In 1922, he fought on the North-West Frontier with Afghanistan.[3] When the Second World War broke out in 1939, his regimental battalion was recalled.

On 25 November 1915, Gascoyne-Cecil married Fairlie Estelle Caroline, elder daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Watson of the Suffolk Regiment. They had two sons, Rupert Arthur Victor Gascoyne-Cecil (1917– 2004) and Anthony Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1921–1998).[1]

In 1949, Gascoyne-Cecil was appointed High Sheriff of Essex. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for Essex from 1951 to 1968.[1][3]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c Burke's Peerage, volume 3 (2003), p. 3505
  2. ^ Patent Office Journal dated 15 November 1917, p. 452: "20th October. 39408. Victor Alexander Gascoyne Cecil, Silver Birches, Colchester, Essex, Eng. Water-heater."
  3. ^ a b Who Was Who, Volume 7 (1971), p. 290