| Honorific Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Kinross | |
| Birth Name: | John Patrick Douglas Balfour |
| Birth Place: | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Death Place: | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Parents: | Patrick Balfour, 2nd Baron Kinross Caroline Johnstone-Douglas |
| Relations: | Arthur Johnstone-Douglas (grandfather) |
John Patrick Douglas Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross (25 June 1904 – 4 June 1976) was a Scottish historian and writer noted for his biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and other works on Islamic history.[1] [2]
Balfour was born in 1904 in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Patrick Balfour, 2nd Baron Kinross and Caroline Elsie Johnstone-Douglas (1879–1969).
His paternal grandparents were the Lord Justice General John Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross and, his first wife, Lilias Oswald Mackenzie (a daughter of Donald Mackenzie, Lord Mackenzie). His maternal grandparents were Jane Maitland Hathorn-Stewart and Arthur Johnstone-Douglas, a member of the extended Marquess of Queensberry family.[3]
He was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford,[4] where he was a member of the Railway Club.[5] He then became a journalist and writer.
A prominent historian, Lord Kinross was a writer noted for his biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and works on Islamic history.[1]
During the Second World War he served with the Royal Air Force and from 1944 to 1947 was First Secretary at the British Embassy at Cairo.[6]
In 1938, he married Angela Mary Culme-Seymour (1912–2012), daughter of George Culme-Seymour and Janet (née Orr-Ewing) and former wife of the artist John Spencer-Churchill. Having been separated by World War II when Balfour was posted to Cairo, she started a five-year relationship with Major Robert Hewer-Hewitt with whom she had two sons, Mark and Johnny. Patrick and Angela divorced in 1942.[7]
Despite the brief marriage, Lord Kinross was homosexual; he had no issue and was succeeded by his brother David Andrew Balfour, 4th Baron Kinross.[8]
He is buried in "Lords Row" in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh with all previous ancestors of the title Baron Kinross.
In 1974 John Betjeman wrote the poem For Patrick: aetat LXX published in his A Nip in the Air, with a footnote giving Balfour's name and title.[9]