Earl Haig Explained

Creation Date:18 October 1919
Present Holder:Alexander Haig, 3rd Earl Haig
Remainder To:1st Earl's heirs male of the body lawfully begotten
Subsidiary Titles:Viscount Dawick
Baron Haig
Status:Extant
Motto:TYDE WHAT MAY
(What will be, will be)

Earl Haig is a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1919 for Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. During the First World War, he served as commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in France and Belgium (1915–18). Haig was made Viscount Dawick and Baron Haig, of Bemersyde in the County of Berwick, at the same time he was given the earldom, also in the peerage of the United Kingdom The viscountcy of Dawick is used as a courtesy title by the Earl's son and heir apparent. the titles are held by the first earl's grandson, the third earl, who succeeded his father in 2009.

The family seat is Bemersyde House, near Newtown St. Boswells, Roxburghshire.

The family motto is "Tyde what may", which refers to a 13th-century poem by Thomas the Rhymer which predicted that there would always be a Haig in Bemersyde:

Lairds of Bemersyde (c.1150)

The dates stated denote the period of proprietorship of the respective Lairds.[1]

Earls Haig (1919)

Present peer

Alexander Douglas Derrick Haig, 3rd Earl Haig (born 30 June 1961) is the only son of the 2nd Earl and his wife Adrienne Thérèse Morley. He has two older sisters, Lady Adrienne (born 1958) and Lady Elizabeth (born 1959). Styled as Viscount Dawick between 1961 and 2009, he was educated at Stowe School.[2]

In 2003 he was living at Third Farm, Melrose, Roxburghshire.[3] On his father’s death on 9 July 2009, he succeeded to the peerages and became chief of Clan Haig. The family seat is Bemersyde House, near Newtown St Boswells, Roxburghshire.[2]

In 2003, Haig married Jane Grassick, daughter of Donald McCombie Grassick. There is no heir to the peerages.[2] [3]

References

Sources

Notes and References

  1. John Russell, The Haigs of Bemersyde, A Family History (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1881), pp. 432–47.
  2. Charles Kidd, ed., Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (London: Debrett's Peerage, 2008), p. 628
  3. Burke's Peerage, vol. 2 (London, 2003), p. 1719