User:BrownHairedGirl/Archibald Stirling (British Army officer)

Brigadier-General Archibald Stirling (1867 – 18 February 1931) of Keir, Dunblane was a Scottish officer in the British Army, a farmer and briefly a Member of Parliament (MP).

Early life
Stirling was the second son of the historical writer and Conservative Party politician Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Baronet. His mother, Lady Anna Maria Leslie-Melville (died 1874), was the second daughter and forth child of The 8th Earl of Leven. His older brother was the philanthropist Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, 10th Baronet.

Stirling was educated at Eton from 1881 to 1885, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Marriage
In April 1910, he married The Hon. Margaret Mary Fraser (1881–1972), daughter of The 13th Lord Lovat. They had four sons and two daughters:


 * William Joseph Stirling, of Keir (9 May 1911 – 1983), married on 22 November 1940 Susan Rachel Bligh (12 August 1916 – 1983), daughter of The Hon. Noel Gervase Bligh and Mary Frost, and paternal granddaughter of The 8th Earl of Darnley and Florence Rose Morphy, and had five children:
 * Archibald Hugh Stirling, of Keir (born 18 September 1941)
 * James Joseph Stirling (1943–1943)
 * Hannah Ann Stirling (born 29 May 1944), married on 7 January 1970 The 7th Marquess of Salisbury (born 30 September 1946)
 * Magdalen Stirling (born 25 November 1945), married in 1969 Patrick Petit, and had issue
 * John Alexander Stirling (born 26 February 1948), married firstly in 1971 Susan Black, without issue, and married secondly in 1985 Olivia Louise Waller, and had three children:
 * Joseph Patrick William Stirling (born 1985)
 * Christabel Georgia Stirling (born 1987)
 * Hugh David Archibald Stirling (born 1993)
 * Peter John Stirling (1 February 1913 – ), married on 6 February 1963 Mahin Feli
 * Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling (15 November 1915 – 4 November 1990)
 * Hugh Joseph Stirling (4 May 1917 – k.i.a., Second World War, Libya, 22 April 1941), unmarried and without issue
 * Margaret Elizabeth Mary Stirling (4 July 1914 – 9 February 1997), married on 26 June 1940 The 16th Earl of Dalhousie (17 October 1914 – 1999)
 * Irene Katharine Teresa Stirling (9 March 1919 – 1992)

Military career
Stirling was commissioned as an second lieutenant in the Scots Guards in 1889, serving with the 1st Battalion in the Nile Expedition. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1892, and to captain in June 1899. He was seconded for service with the Egyptian Army in July 1899, and restored to regular army service in March 1900. He served in the Second Boer War, adding a further seven clasps to the medal and clasp he had won on the Nile.

He retired from the army on 17th June 1903, but in January 1904 he was commissioned as a major in the Lovat Scouts, a Highland yeomanry regiment. In August 1909 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Lovat Scouts, a rank he held until 1915.

In World War I he served in the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign as Brigadier-General commanding the Highland Mounted Brigade, and the following year he commanded the 2nd Dismounted Brigade in Egypt.

Politics
Stirling served for many years as chairman of the Western District Committee of Perthshire County Council.

In January 1917 the Unionist MP for Western Perthshire, Marquess of Tullibardine, succeeded his father as Duke of Atholl. He was therefore elevated to the House of Lords, vacating his seat in the House of Commons.

The West Perthshire Unionist Association met at the Station Hotel in Perth on Monday 29 January, to select a candidate for the resulting by-election. The association's selection committee had considered several possible candidates, but unanimously recommended Stirling, and the meeting accepted the recommendation.

During World War I the major parties operated an electoral truce, whereby they did not contest vacancies in parliamentary seats held by the other parties. The Unionist selection was then notified to the local Liberal Party, who did not just refrain from nominating their own candidate; they endorsed Stirling as a coalition candidate. Nominations took place at the County Buildings in Perth on 21 February, when Stirling was by proposed the chairman of the Unionist Association and seconded by George Freeland Barbour, the chairman of the West Perthshire Liberal Association and the Liberal candidate for West Perthshire in December 1910. Nomination papers in support of Stirling were lodged by representatives of both parties from nay towns in the constituency.

Since there was only candidate, Sheriff Sym declared that Stirling was elected unopposed. He took his seat in the Commons on 27 February, introduced by Lord Edmund Talbot and Sir George Younger.

In March, the west Perthshire Unionist Association met in Dunblane and congratulated Stirling on his election. The new MP spoke of his pride at being supported by both parties, but denounced the "traitors" in his own camp who had objected to the election a Roman Catholic. Stirling said that every able-bodied man had a duty to volunteer for national service. As a reserve officer and an MP, he himself was ready to accept any govt decision that he would be more useful doing something other than attending the House of Commons.

In April 1918, Stirling called for fewer exceptions and exemptions to conscription. He wanted young men to be exempted from service only when medically unfit, or on compassionate grounds.

However, Stirling's main interest was in agriculture and forestry. In a debate on the Scottish Estimates on 4 July 1918, he opposed converting deer forests to sheep farms, preferring widescale afforestation. The Secretary of State for Scotland Harold Tennant praised Stirling's work in support of training disabled soldiers for forestry, and establishing a forestry school. On 9 November 1918, Stirling was one of the speakers at the opening of Scotland's first forestry school at Birnam in Perthshire.

1918 general election
The Representation of the People Act 1918 had received royal assent in February 1918, giving the vote at all adult men and some women, tripling the the size of the electorate. By July, the Crieff branch of the National Farmers Union of Scotland (NFUS) was considering how best to ensure the representation of agriculture, with some farmers advocating a non-party farmers candidate. However others spoke in support of Stirling's work for farmers.

The Act had also redrawn parliamentary constituency boundaries for the first time since 1885. For parliamentary purposes, Perthshire was now combined with its smaller neighbour Kinross-shire, and the resulting parliamentary county was split into two divisions. The new Kinross and Western Perthshire division covered most of Stirling's former seat.

In late August, representatives of NFUS branches from across the division met in Parth with representatives of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union and the Women's Rural Institutes. They agreed to invite both the Liberal and Unionist associations in the constituency to discuss possible candidates with the committee, and if the results were not satisfactory to approach the Labour Party. One member that pressed the case of Colonel Stirling, who he said would be happy to meet the Farmers Union. However, it was agreed that the committee would not be bound by the outcome of any such meeting.

The World War IGreat War ended with an armistice on 11 November. The Kinross and West Perth Unionist Association met in Perth on 13 November 1918, and adopted Stirling as its candidate for the next election. Accepting the nomination, Stirling spoke of how the war had brought people closer together, and hoped that a continuation of the wartime coalition government would continue to be an "outward symbol of good understanding". He identified housing and agriculture and priorities for Scotland in the post-war reconstruction. He reminded the association that he had supported the extension of conscription to Ireland, and opposed "any preferential terms to Ireland in this or other matters".

However, the Liberals decided to oppose Stirling's re-election. On 19 November they adopted as their candidate James Gardiner, a grain merchant in Perth who was also a farmer in Dargill, Crieff, and in January 1918 had become the founding president of the Crieff branch of the NFUS.

Both candidates expressed their support for Lloyd George's coalition government, but it was Colonel Stirling who received the "Coalition Coupon" of endorsement.

Stirling opened his campaign on 25 November, with a public meeting in Dunblane. He sought support for the existing government to conclude the peace agreements after the end of the war, noting that its ministers had intimate working relationships with other governments.

Death
Stirling died in Edinburgh on 18 February 1931, aged 63. He had been ill for several years, and had had an operation the week before his death.

He was survived by his wife, four sons and two daughters. His third son David Stirling (1915–1990) was the founder of the Special Air Service (SAS).