Alexander Gore Arkwright Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie

Under heavy small-arms fire outside Gedaref on 22 September 1898, a detachment of the Egyptian Army's Camel Corps held an exposed position against advancing Dervish fighters. Captain Alexander Hore-Ruthven, an officer in the 3rd Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry attached to the Egyptian forces, observed an Egyptian officer fall severely wounded fifty yards in front of the defensive line. Moving forward into the open, he lifted the wounded man and began carrying him back toward the cover of the 16th Egyptian Battalion. As enemy troops pressed forward, he repeatedly set the officer down to engage the attackers with rifle fire, halting their approach long enough to reach the main line. The official citation published in The London Gazette on 28 February 1899 recorded the intervention:

"On the 22nd Sep 1898, during the action of Gedarif, Captain Hore-Ruthven, seeing an Egyptian officer lying wounded within 50 yards of the advancing Dervishes, who were firing and charging, picked him up and carried him towards the 16th Egyptian Battalion. He dropped the wounded officer two or three times, and fired upon the Dervishes, who were following, to check their advance."

Invested with the Victoria Cross by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in May 1899, he transferred into the regular army shortly thereafter as a second lieutenant in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

Born at Windsor in July 1872 to the 9th Baron Ruthven and Lady Caroline Gore, he began his early military service in the militia after periods of education at Winchester and Eton, and time spent managing a tea plantation in Assam. Service in the Sudan brought appointment to the Ottoman Order of Osmanieh, Fourth Class, before operations extended to East Africa. During the 1903–1904 Somaliland Campaign, he served as a special service officer and participated in the action at Jidballi. A transition to vice-regal administration occurred in 1908 when he accompanied Lord Dudley to Melbourne as military secretary, establishing his first connection with Australian public affairs before staff appointments in India.

The outbreak of war in 1914 drew him back to active operations in Europe and the Mediterranean. Deployed to France as a brigade major in November 1914, he subsequently joined the Welsh Guards and participated in the Gallipoli Campaign, where severe combat wounds required extended medical evacuation. Returning to staff duties as a lieutenant-colonel, he spent the remaining war years directing operational planning and field formations on the Western Front. Five mentions in despatches and appointment to the Distinguished Service Order marked his war service. Command of the 1st Guards Brigade during the final Allied drive east of Ypres in October 1918 yielded a Bar to his DSO, awarded after he went forward under direct fire at St. Louis to organize an infantry assault that secured high ground commanding the sector.

Post-war service included leading British forces in Germany before retirement from the regular military in 1928 with the rank of brigadier-general. Political and vice-regal appointments followed across Australia, beginning with governorships in South Australia and New South Wales. Raised to the peerage as Baron Gowrie, he assumed office as Governor-General of Australia in January 1936. His nine-year tenure covered major political transitions, including the death in office of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in 1939 and the establishment of John Curtin's wartime administration in 1941. During the Second World War, he conducted extensive inspection tours across northern Australia and New Guinea, continuing his official duties despite the loss of his only son, Patrick, who was killed in action in North Africa in 1942.

Upon concluding his term in Australia in 1944, he returned to Britain and was created Earl of Gowrie. He served as Deputy Constable and Lieutenant-Governor of Windsor Castle until 1953, then returned to the town of his birth, where he died on 2 May 1955.