John Buchan (1) [1875–1940]

Buchan was the son of a Free Church minister, and grew up in Fife. He read classics at Glasgow University, winning a scholarship that enabled him to continue his studies at Oxford.

After graduating, he went to South Africa in the aftermath of the Boer War as aide to Alfred Milner. After an unsuccessful attempt to make his way as a lawyer, he went into publishing. In 1907, he linked himself to the English aristocracy by marrying the Duke of Westminster's cousin, Susan Grosvenor.

In the years immediately before World War I, he started to make a name for himself as a writer of adventure stories. T

During World War I he continued to write adventure stories in between propaganda work for the government and reporting the war for the Times.

After the war, Buchan settled down in a country house outside Oxford, later becoming a Unionist MP

In 1935 he was appointed Governor-General of Canada. At the time, this was an appointment that went with a peerage, so he became Baron Tweedsmuir. He died in 1940.