Robert Nugent Dewar-Durie MC OBE 1837-1959
Robert Nugent Dewar-Durie
was the son of Eliza Durie, 12th of Craigluscar (1837-1917) and Andrew Dewar, M.D., J.P.
(1830-1895)
Eliza Durie was born 24 June1837 in Dunfermline, married
Dr. (William) Andrew Dewar in 1859, and died in Edinburgh aged 80, on 27
September 1917.
W. Andrew Dewar, M.D., J.P. (son of Andrew Dewar, Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons and Isabella Husband) was born 26 September 1830, graduated from Edinburgh University 1852, died 30
October 1895. Andrew and Eliza Dewar lived and had his surgery at Abbot House (by Dunfermline Abbey) before moving to Viewfield House, Walmer (House) and later to
Craigluscar.
In 1868 they became ‘Dewar-Durie’ following the death (aged 29) of Eliza's brother Robert Durie, 11th of Craiglusar, last in a direct male line from Abbot George. Of Andrew and Eliza’s eight children, only the youngest had children. (1) Constance Dewar-Durie married Frederick Lewis Maitland and had one son, Dr. David Randolph Maitland. (2) Robert Nugent Dewar-Durie born 26.12.1879 in Dunfermline, died in London on his 80th Birthday, 26
December 1959.
 Aged
16 or 17, Nugent went to London to work for the Imperial Bank of Persia. In 1899
he enlisted in the 11th
Battalion, 35th (Middlesex) Company of Imperial Yeomanry to go to the Boer War,
receiving the Queen’s Medal with four clasps for service in South Africa 11
October 1899 - 31 May 1901. “Candidates (for the Imperial Yeomanry) to be from
20 to 35 years of age, and of good character. Volunteers or civilian candidates
must satisfy the Colonel of the regiment through which they enlist that they are
good riders and marksmen, according to the Yeomanry standard.”
After the war Nugent rejoined the Imperial Bank of Persia,
leaving for Persia on 28 September 1901. On 14 November 1904 at the Teheran
Legation, he married Ida Caroline Pollexfen
Varley, born 5 January 1879, died 27 April 1972. (Ida‘s parents were
artists, John and Isabella (Pollexfen) Varley.) A son, Raymond Varley
Dewar-Durie was born in Isfahan 1905 and 1911 a daughter, Rosamond Aeliz, in
Ahwaz.
Nugent had established several branches of the IBP in
Persia by 1914, when he was seconded to become Financial Advisor to the
*Caucasus Military Mission during the First World War. He served in Persia and
Russia, and January 1919, was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks for 100 days in the
Butyrka Criminal Gaol (Butyrskaya tyurma), Moscow, until freed in an exchange of
prisoners on a bridge at Baliostoff (near Petrograd) on 28 May 1919.
He was awarded the Stanislas Medal (2nd
class) in 1916; the Order of St. Anne of Russia (2nd
class) in 1917. In 1918 he was awarded the Military Cross (M.C.) and invested as
an Officer, Order of the Most Excellent Order
of theEmpire (O.B.E.) for services to Political and Military
Intelligence.
In 1919 he returned to Persia as Chief Inspector for the
Imperial Bank of Persia, until premature retirement in 1928.
He served in London throughout the 2nd
World War, as Infantry Platoon Commander in the Home Guard and later as Troop
Commander, Anti-Aircraft Battery.
SS 2011 |
