Lieutenant-Colonel F.G.W. Lane Fox
43rd (Wessex) Reconnaissance Regiment

They were quiet and for the most part cultured young men, very different in their outlook from the robust horsy officers of their fellow regiment, the Life Guards. Except, possibly, for the second Colonel, Joe Lane-Fox, whose only advice to me on joining the regiment was “Don’t mix port and champagne and don’t have your wife in the morning, In case you meet somebody more interesting in the afternoon.”

(Somerset De Chair, Morning Glory, 136)

Born on 14 October 1899 in London, Francis Gordon Ward Lane Fox was a graduate of Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in Royal Horse Guards in 1919. Born with the last name Jackson, in 1937 he adopted Lane Fox by deed poll. In 1929, he had married the daughter and heiress of George Lane-Fox, 1st Baron Bingley and niece to Lord Halifax. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1937.

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