From The Daily Telegraph 31 March.
Peregrine Fairfax, who has died aged 86, was a soldier, countryman and farmer who embraced concern for the environment long before it became the fashion.
Born in London on March 8 1925, Peregrine John Wishart Fairfax was the second son of the American-born 12th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who became a naturalised British citizen at the turn of the last century . The peerage was created in 1627, and the 3rd Lord Fairfax was the Civil War general known as “Black Tom” who commanded the Parliamentary army and fought with distinction at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.
The family’s long association with America began in 1685, when the 5th Lord Fairfax married Catherine Colepeper, daughter of the former Governor of Virginia and heiress to 300,000 acres of the Shenandoah Valley.
On leaving Eton in 1943 he joined the Army, and a year later he was leading a troop of the 12th Royal Lancers as part of the reconnaissance screen at the head of Allied Forces on their advance north through Italy.
As the commander of a reconnaissance team of Italian partisans, Fairfax was said to have been the first Allied soldier to cross the rivers Panaro and Po. In April 1945, by now a captain, he was with the 12th Lancers when they entered Venice, and his troop was part of the squadron that liberated Trieste, bringing hostilities in northern Italy to an end. After the war he served in Palestine, where his commanding officer decided to bring back the correct uniforms for parades. Fairfax accordingly mounted the Guard in blues, pouch belt, sword, overalls and spurs. Completing the parade, he did a smart about-turn, crossed his spurs and fell headfirst into a coil of barbed wire, from which he had to be extricated by his men.
Even during his military service, Fairfax was rarely without some form of animal companion, and kept a black and white rat in his bedding roll – the creature met its end in Palestine, allegedly eaten by a hungry local after the bedding roll fell off the back of Fairfax’s armoured car.
Fairfax inherited the family farm at Comarques, but his fear of creeping urbanisation led him, in the 1950s, to search for a more agreeable base. He sold Comarques in 1955 and bought Mindrum in north Northumberland, a 1,200-acre farm . He also bought East Benula, a deer forest in Ross, where he pursued his love of stalking .
Full obituary with photograph.
Peregrine Fairfax, who has died aged 86, was a soldier, countryman and farmer who embraced concern for the environment long before it became the fashion.
Born in London on March 8 1925, Peregrine John Wishart Fairfax was the second son of the American-born 12th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who became a naturalised British citizen at the turn of the last century . The peerage was created in 1627, and the 3rd Lord Fairfax was the Civil War general known as “Black Tom” who commanded the Parliamentary army and fought with distinction at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.
The family’s long association with America began in 1685, when the 5th Lord Fairfax married Catherine Colepeper, daughter of the former Governor of Virginia and heiress to 300,000 acres of the Shenandoah Valley.
On leaving Eton in 1943 he joined the Army, and a year later he was leading a troop of the 12th Royal Lancers as part of the reconnaissance screen at the head of Allied Forces on their advance north through Italy.
As the commander of a reconnaissance team of Italian partisans, Fairfax was said to have been the first Allied soldier to cross the rivers Panaro and Po. In April 1945, by now a captain, he was with the 12th Lancers when they entered Venice, and his troop was part of the squadron that liberated Trieste, bringing hostilities in northern Italy to an end. After the war he served in Palestine, where his commanding officer decided to bring back the correct uniforms for parades. Fairfax accordingly mounted the Guard in blues, pouch belt, sword, overalls and spurs. Completing the parade, he did a smart about-turn, crossed his spurs and fell headfirst into a coil of barbed wire, from which he had to be extricated by his men.
Even during his military service, Fairfax was rarely without some form of animal companion, and kept a black and white rat in his bedding roll – the creature met its end in Palestine, allegedly eaten by a hungry local after the bedding roll fell off the back of Fairfax’s armoured car.
Fairfax inherited the family farm at Comarques, but his fear of creeping urbanisation led him, in the 1950s, to search for a more agreeable base. He sold Comarques in 1955 and bought Mindrum in north Northumberland, a 1,200-acre farm . He also bought East Benula, a deer forest in Ross, where he pursued his love of stalking .
Full obituary with photograph.
