Gawain Thomas Alexander Douglas DFC
Recipient of the Distinguished Flying
Cross. Knight Chevalier of the Military and Hospitailer Order of St.
Thomas Acon. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (Scotland). Life
Governor of the Royal Home and Hospital for Incurables, London. Late of
the British, Indian Army (Cavalry). Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal
Armoured Corps Special Reserve of Officers. Ex-Squadron Leader in the
Royal Air Force, 1941-1947. Aide-de-Camp to Lord Erskine of the Earldom
of Mar. Governor of Madras, and Adjutant of the Governor's Mounted
Bodyguard, 1938-1940
Lieutenant Colonel Gawain Thomas Alexander
Douglas was born December 18, 1914 at Eagle House, Woodford Green,
Essex, the son of Robert Hinde Douglas Sarah Jane daughter of William
Raynolds of Ramsay, Essex, who had married in Shanghai, China, in July
1912.
His
regiment was the famous polo-playing 15th Lancers before WWII, and he in
1938 found himself playing against U.S. top polo players, "Laddie"
Sanford and Gerald Balding in the Prince of Wales tournament in Bombay.
This period of his early life as a subaltern was very exciting
due to his participation in polo, tiger shooting, yacht racing,
Himalayas climbing and qualifing as a pilot in his spare time. In 1941
he was transferred to the R.A.F. and flew as a fighter pilot for the
rest of the war in the Middle East, Burma and Malaya. He flew mainly
Hurricans, spitfires, P47 Thunderbolts and Tempests. After the
excitement of the war, he found peacetime soldiering boring and poorly
paid, so he resigned and went to work, mainly overseas, as an
administrator in shipping and large hydro-electric projects. He retired
in 1980 to a small polo ranch near Pakn Beach, Florida where he lived
for 14 years.
He returned, in 1994, to Great Britain to be with
his family.
Gavin (preferred spelling) [can] trace his
ancestry through the Lairds of Drumlanrig, to the half-brother of "the
Good" Sir James Douglas, 2nd Earl of Douglas and Mar who was killed at
Otterburn in 1388--and through him supposedly to "Le Hardi" and "Long
Leg".
He is one of the Douglases of Morton in Nithsdale,
descended from the 7th Laird of Drumlanrig in 1520. In 1995 he
matriculated his Arms, for his childrens' sake, in the Court of the
Lord Lyon. His father matriculated his in 1930 although it is only
necessary to do this every 3rd or 4th generation.
Gawain married
(1) Madras, India, 07/Nov/1940, Patricia Marie Turner
daughter of Arthur Cleveland Turner M.B.E. Gawain and Patricia Douglas
had two sons:
1. Nigel Gawaine Robert Cleveland Douglas
2. Charles James Michael Douglas
(2) Calcutta, India, 30/Dec/1955
Catherynne Anne Osbourne daughter of Reginald Arthur Osborne and had a
daughter
3. Jennifer Claire Aruna Douglas, born Warsak,
Peshawar, North West Frontier, Pakistan 19/Mar/1957
Notes:
1.
It would seem from his Burma Star application that Gawain was a resident
of Guernsey in 1988
2. Gawain's brother,
Sholto, disappeared in
mysterious circumstances in 1942 in Southeast Asia.
See also:
•
Thomas Harigad Douglas, Sholto's grandfather
for further details on the family
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