Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald
British politician and general (1852-1935)
Lieutenant-General Douglas Mackinnon Baillie Hamilton Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald, (29 October 1852 – 12 April 1935), styled Lord Cochrane between 1860 and 1885, was a British Army officer and politician.
Early life
Cochrane was the second but eldest surviving son of Thomas Cochrane, 11th Earl of Dundonald, by Louisa Harriet Mackinnon, daughter of William Alexander Mackinnon. Thomas Cochrane, 1st Baron Cochrane of Cults, was his younger brother. He was educated at Eton College.
Military career
Cochrane was commissioned into the Life Guards in July 1870, and was promoted to lieutenant the following year and captain in 1878. In 1884, he went to the Soudan in command of a detachment of the Camel Corps in the expedition for the relief of Khartoum, for his distinguished services in this campaign, he was mentioned in dispatched and received the medal with two clasps and the Khedive's bronze star with the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. He then served in the Nile Expedition, the Desert March and the Relief of Khartoum in 1885. In 1889 he reached the rank of full colonel in the army. In 1895, he was appointed Commanding Officer of the 2nd Life Guards.
He served in the Second Boer War and in November 1899 he volunteered to be the Commander of the Mounted Brigade, part of the South Natal Field Force, whilst there on the 22nd of the same month, Sir Redvers Buller gave him command over the mounted troops (which mainly consisted of colonial irregulars).
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3714622. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1852, 1935, 1860 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.