Basil Hamilton - Temple - Blackwood , 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava Basil Sheridan Hamilton - Temple - Blackwood , 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava DL ( 6 April 1909 – 25 March 1945 ) , styled Earl of Ava until 1918 , was a Conservative politician and soldier . Early life and family . Dufferin was the eldest child and only son of the 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava . He was educated at Eton College and then at Balliol College , Oxford . Following his father ' s succession to the marquessate in 1918 he was known as the Earl of Ava . At Eton he won the coveted Rosebery Prize , the highest possible distinction for a history pupil , when aged sixteen . At Oxford he was friends with among others Frank Pakenham , 7th Earl of Longford . He was also a contemporary and close friend of the poet John Betjeman . Betjeman wrote of his friend as " the dark , heavy - lidded companion " in his poem " Brackenbury Scholar of Balliol " . Political career and the war . After university Lord Dufferin pursued a career in politics . He made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in December 1931 , aged just 22 , during a debate on India . Only a few days later he was appointed to the Indian Franchise Committee which was to tour the country during its researches . After his return from India he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the 11th Marquess of Lothian , who was Under - Secretary of State for India , and then to the 3rd Viscount Halifax ( later 1st Earl of Halifax ) who was successively President of the Board of Education from 1932 to 1935 , Secretary of State for War in 1935 , and Lord Privy Seal from 1935 to 1937 . Lord Dufferin was chairman of the Primrose League from 1932 to 1934 , a Lord - in - Waiting to King George VI from 1936 to 1937 and was himself appointed Under - Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1937 before he resigned from the government in 1940 to join the British Army , refusing a post in the World War II coalition government of Winston Churchill . He received a commission as a captain in the Royal Horse Guards in July 1940 but was released from the Army in 1941 to become Director of the Empire Division of the Ministry of Information . The following year he undertook a special mission abroad for the ministry , and rejoined the Army in 1944 . Lord Dufferin was serving as a staff officer in Mandalay , Burma when he was killed in an ambush during a covert mission on 25 March 1945 , just a few weeks short of his 36th birthday . Family . Lord Dufferin and Ava married Maureen Constance , second daughter of the Hon . Arthur Ernest Guinness , himself the second son of Edward Guinness , 1st Earl of Iveagh , on 3 July 1930 at St . Margaret ' s , Westminster . They had three children : Terence Hamilton - Temple - Blackwood , 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava < / a > ( 9 July 1938 – 29 May 1988 ) Because he has no known grave in Burma , Lord Dufferin is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission , his name listed on Face 1 of the Rangoon Memorial in Taukkyan War Cemetery . In the family burial ground of Campo Santo at Clandeboye , County Down a Celtic cross stands to mark his loss and the earlier losses of the Dufferin family to war . His friend John Betjeman wrote the poem " In Memory of Basil , Marquess of Dufferin and Ava " in his memory . His widow married twice after his death , first to Major Harry Alexander Desmond ( ' Kelpie ' ) Buchanan MC in 1948 ( divorced 1954 ) and second in 1955 to Judge John Cyril Maude QC ( 1901 - 1986 ) , but against precedent always used the title she acquired from her first marriage . Maureen , Lady Dufferin died on 3 May 1998 and is buried at Clandeboye .