Education
Wellington College; Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Wellington College; Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
He bought and restored Farleigh House at Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset and lived there for most of the second half of his life. Cairns was commissioned an officer in The Rifle Brigade, and served in the 3rd battalion. After retiring, he was on 9 February 1898 appointed a major of the 5th (Militia) battalion, previously the Queen's Own Royal Tower Hamlets Light Infantry (2nd Tower Hamlets Militia), based in Bethnal Green in the East End of London.
Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Cairns volunteers for service when his militia regiment was embodied in 1900.
After peace was declared in May 1902, he left South Africa on board the Steamship Bavarian and arrived in the United Kingdom the following month. On 12 July 1894, Cairns married Olive Cobbold, daughter of the Member of Parliament for Ipswich, John Patteson Cobbold.