Sir Alexander Maitland Sharp Bethune, tenth baronet, was the last of the

Bethune Baronets There have been two baronetcies created for persons with the surname Bethune, one in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia and one in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. The Sharp, later Bethune Baronetcy, of Scotscraig in the County of Fife, was creat ...

, a title dating from 1683.

Early life

Born in 1909 the only son of the ninth baronet Sir Alexander Sharp Bethune (1860-1917) and his wife Elizabeth Carnegie Maitland-Heriot (1864-1935). His father had successfully claimed the baronetcy, dormant since the death of Sir William Sharp, 6th Baronet in 1780. After schooling at

West Downs School West Downs School, Romsey Road, Winchester, Hampshire, was an English independent preparatory school, which was established in 1897 and closed in 1988. History Founding The school was founded by Lionel Helbert (1870–1919), with help from h ...

Sunningdale School Sunningdale School is a family-run boys' preparatory independent boarding school of around 100 pupils, situated in Sunningdale in Berkshire, close to London, England. Introduction Sunningdale School is a small school that seeks to educate its ...

and

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

he earned a BA in Modern Languages and History at

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

. His sister Evelyn was the mother of Sir

Alastair Pilkington Sir Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington (7 January 1920 – 5 May 1995), known as Sir Alastair Pilkington, was a British engineer and businessman who invented and perfected the float glass process for commercial manufacturing of plate glass. E ...

, developer of

float glass Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and other various low- melting-point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat sur ...

Career

Following an initial job with

Quaker Oats The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago. It has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001. History Precursor miller companies In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. S ...

in the USA which came to an end when foreign workers were deported in 1934, he joined the Lord &Thomas advertising agency in London. On the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was recruited for the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

, serving in

Jugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Switching to the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in 1943, he became an officer in the Intelligence Corps. After the war, he started his own business in specialist photocopying.

Family

In 1955 he married Ruth Mary Hayes (1918-2004) and they had one daughter Lucy, a dancer. He died in 1997 and his memorial is at

Kemback Kemback is a village and parish in Fife, Scotland, located east of Cupar. The present village was developed in the 19th century to house those working the flax mills on the nearby Ceres Burn. From 1681 the minister for the parish was Alexander ...

Bibliography

* ''Fife Sharps and Bethunes: An Essay in Family History''. Alexander Sharp Bethune (10th Baronet). Lucy Bethune, 1997 - Genealogy - 499 pages.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bethune, Alex 1909 births 1997 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia People educated at Sunningdale School