Alexander Montagu, 10th Duke of Manchester

Born at Tandragee Castle, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1902, Lord Mandeville was the son of William Montagu, 9th Duke of Manchester, by his marriage to Helena Zimmerman, the only child of Eugene Zimmerman, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a railroad president and major stockholder in Standard Oil. The wedding in November 1900 was kept secret from both families, and at first the Duke’s mother did not believe reports of it.[1]

In 1931, his parents were divorced, when his father was reported to be planning to marry an actress.[2] In 1937, Helena Manchester married secondly Arthur Keith-Falconer, 10th Earl of Kintore.[3]

Mandeville was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.[3]

Kimbolton Castle, the family seat which the 10th Duke was the last to own

From Dartmouth, Lord Mandeville was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1919. He held the rank of Commander when he retired from the service in 1930.[3]

During the Second World War, Mandeville was posted to Ceylon, and in 1940 was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.[3] After the end of the War he gave up living in England, moving to Kenya in 1946. There, he farmed an estate of 10,000 acres.[4] He succeeded to the Dukedom of Manchester on his father's death in 1947.[3]

During the 1950s, the Duke sold both the principal family seat, Kimbolton Castle, along with most of its contents, and Tandragee Castle in Ireland. By the 1960s, he had also sold most of the other landed estates in the British Isles which had come to him.[4]

On 5 May 1927 he married firstly, at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, Nell Vere Stead (died 2 September 1966), daughter of Sydney Vere Stead of Melbourne, Australia, by whom he had two sons:

• Sidney Arthur Robin George Drogo Montagu (1929–1985)
• Lord Angus Charles Drogo Montagu (1938–2002)

On 7 February 1969 he married secondly, and without further issue, Elizabeth (née Fullerton) Coleman Crocker (1913–2007), daughter of Samuel Clyde Fullerton of Miami, Oklahoma. She had formerly been married to William Willard Crocker, a son of William Henry Crocker and grandson of Charles Crocker.[5]

At the time of his death in 1977 he was still listed in Who's Who as living at Kapsirowa, Hoey's Bridge, Kenya,[3] but he died in London, after running through most of his inherited wealth.[4]

His elder son, Sidney Arthur Robin George Drogo Montagu, succeeded him to the family titles. He died without issue, so his brother, Lord Angus Charles Drogo Montagu, became the 12th Duke.[4]