Ian MacAlister Stewart

Brigadier Ian MacAlister Stewart, 13th Laird of Achnacone, (17 October 1895 – 14 March 1987) was a Scottish military officer who served in the British Army during both the First and Second World Wars. Known for his eccentric training methods, he commanded the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which participated in the Malayan campaign and the Battle of Singapore during the Second World War. Early life Stewart was born on 17 October 1895, part of the Stewart family of Appin in Argyllshire. His place of birth, in Surore, Poona, India, was where his father, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Kenneth Stewart, 12th of Achnacone, was a medical officer in the Poona Horse before his parents returned to Scotland. Stewart attended Cheltenham College before going to Sandhurst on a prize cadetship. He passed through Sandhurst in 1913 as the top student of his year, and the youngest. First World War Stewart was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in February 1914 and on 11 August of that year became the first British soldier to land on French soil and the first to be mentioned in a despatch. He served throughout the First World War and was highly decorated, earning the Military Cross and Bar, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. At the end of the war, Stewart was a temporary captain. He became heir to Achnacone after his older brother, Captain Alexander D.L. Stewart, died in a motorcycle accident in Dublin in 1919. As with many army officers between the wars, Stewart was placed on half pay, but was restored to full pay as a captain on 3 June 1925. On 8 September 1931, Stewart was promoted to major. Stewart's military career was dominated by his service with the Argylls, a regiment to which he was so wedded that when he was given command of the 2nd Battalion in the 1930s some of his brother officers did not even realise that he was married with a daughter. Stewart had married Ursula Morely-Fletcher in 1937 when he was 42 years old. He even refused a position at the Staff College, Camberley to remain with his battalion, thereby losing the only way to senior command.