Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland


Alan Ian Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, was a British peer, army officer, and newspaper proprietor.

Early life

Percy was born in London on 17 April 1880. He was the son of Henry Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, and Lady Edith Campbell.
Among his siblings were his elder brother Henry Algernon George Percy, Earl Percy, Lady Victoria Alexandra Percy, Lady Mary Percy, Lord William Richard Percy, Lord James Percy, and Lord Eustace Sutherland Campbell Percy.

Career

Military career

Percy was a second lieutenant of the 2nd Volunteer Battalion the Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment), when he was admitted as a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 24 January 1900. He was part of a detachment sent to South Africa in March 1900 to reinforce the 3rd battalion during the Second Boer War, and served with his regiment there until the war ended. For his service, he received the Queen's South Africa Medal. Following the end of the war, he returned to the United Kingdom in August 1902. During his time as ADC to the Governor General of Canada, he undertook a wager to walk 111 miles from one city to another in three days—despite blizzards and heavy snowfall, he completed the challenge and won the wager. During the First World War he served with the Grenadier Guards, working with the Intelligence Department to provide eyewitness accounts of battles and the front line. His brother Lord William Percy also served during the war; wounded in 1915, he spent the remainder of the war working as a military attorney. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. On 1 October 1918 he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment).

Political activities

Politically Percy was a Tory diehard. He was a staunch supporter of the House of Lords. He wrote for the National Review on military matters.
From 1921, he funded the Boswell Publishing Company, and then in 1922 until his death, the Patriot, a radical right-wing weekly which published articles by Nesta Webster and promulgated a mix of anti-communism and antisemitism.
In 1924, he acquired an interest in The Morning Post.

Other activities

The Duke was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland. For one year before his death, he served as Chancellor of the University of Durham, a role his father had also held. His father, the 7th Duke, was an alderman on the Middlesex County Council up to his death. In July 1918, he was chosen to fill the vacancy on the council in his father's place.
In 1930, the Duke wrote a short story The Shadow on the Moor, a fox-hunting ghost story in the manner of M R James set in Northumberland, in which the hunter becomes the hunted. Originally privately published, the story remains in print as a short novella.

Personal life

On 18 October 1911, Percy married Lady Helen Magdalen Gordon-Lennox. They had six children:
The 8th Duke died in London on 23 August 1930 and was buried in the Northumberland Vault, within Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded in the dukedom and his other titles by his eldest son, George.

Works

  • , with E. D. Swinton, Longmans, Green & Co., 1916.The Patriot, Vol. I, No. 1, 9 February 1922.
  • , Reprinted from the Patriot, January, 1930.
  • The Shadow on the Moor, 1930
  • "La Salamandre" The story of a vivandière 1934
Other
  • W. H. Mallock, Democracy; being an Abridged Edition of 'The Limits of Pure Democracy'], with an introduction by the Duke of Northumberland, Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1924.