Career
After training at the East India Company"s Military Seminary at Addiscombe (1827-1828), Durand left Britain for India in 1829, arriving in May 1830. He served initially as Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers. He also served as Commissioner of Tenasserim (1844–1846), as Resident of Gwalior (1849–1852), and Acting Resident of Baroda (March 1852 – March 1854).
During the Indian Rebellion (1857–1858), he served as a military commander in western Malwa.
Promoted to major-general, he served finally as Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab (1 June 1870 – 1 January 1871). Henry Marion Durand was one of two illegitimate sons of Major the Honorary
Henry Percy and Mlle Marion Durand, a French woman he met while prisoner-of-war in the Napoleonic Wars. He lived at Furness Lodge, East Sheen, Richmond.
On the evening of 31 December 1870 Durand was thrown from an elephant as it attempted to pass under a low gateway in the city of Tonk (now Tank, Pakistan).
He fell heavily, and died the following day. He was buried in a church in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.