Background
Born at 8 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, London, Drumlanrig was the eldest son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, by his first wife Sibyl, daughter of Alfred Montgomery.
Born at 8 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, London, Drumlanrig was the eldest son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, by his first wife Sibyl, daughter of Alfred Montgomery.
He was educated at Harrow and at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and served as Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards from 1887 to 1893.
As the heir apparent of the Marquess, he used the courtesy title Viscount Drumlanrig. Drumlanrig later served as private secretary to the Liberal politician Lord Rosebery. Owing to Rosebery"s patronage, on 22 June 1893 he was created Baron Kelhead, of Kelhead in the County of Dumfries, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
This gave him his own seat in the House of Lords, unlike his father, whose titles were all in the Peerage of Scotland.
In July 1893 he was appointed a Lord-in-Waiting by Rosebery. He was not allowed to take his seat and was never again chosen as a representative peer by the Scottish nobles.
Drumlanrig"s accession to Parliament as the 1st Baron Kelhead precipitated a bitter dispute between him and Queensberry, and also between Queensberry and Rosebery, who became Prime Minister in 1894.