A superb and orginal Officers Lance Cap to Victoria Cross receipient Honourable Alexander Edward Murray, 8th Earl of Dunmore and titled Viscount Fincastle.
 
Original Victorian headdress with a later addition of a ERVII boss added in 1901 upon the accession of Kind Edward VII, Original Officers gold gimped body lines.
 
Contained in their original named transportation tins "Hon AE Murray 16th Queens Lancers"
 
We also have this Officers Victorian Regimental Shabraque.
 
Alexander Murray was born on 22 April 1871 to Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore and Lady Gertrude Coke, immediately taking the courtesy title of Viscount Fincastle. His grandparents included Alexander Murray, 6th Earl of Dunmore, Lady Catherine Herbert, Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, and Lady Juliana Whitbread. He was educated privately and at Eton before joining the army. On 30th May 1892, Murray was commissioned into the 16th Lancers and sent to India.Murray was aide-de-camp to Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of India from 1895 to 1897.In 1896, he accompanied the Dongola Expedition to the Sudan and saw action in the Mahdist War.
 
In 1897, aged 26, while a lieutenant in the 16th Lancers, Murray returned to India also acting as a war correspondent for The Times. On 17 August 1897 at Nawa Kili, Upper Swat, British India, Lieutenant Murray with two other officers (Robert Bellew Adams and Hector Lachlan Stewart MacLean) and five men of the Guides, went under a heavy and close fire, to the rescue of a lieutenant of the Lancashire Fusiliers who was lying disabled by a bullet wound and surrounded by enemy swordsmen. While the wounded officer was being brought under cover, he was killed by a bullet. One of the officers of the rescue party was mortally wounded and four horses were shot. The message sent to their superiors read:
During the fighting at Nawa Bali, in Upper Swat, on the 17th August, 1897, Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Adams proceeded with Lieutenants H. L. S. MacLean and Viscount Fincastle, and five men of the Guides, under a very heavy and close fire, to the rescue of Lieutenant R. T. Greaves, Lancashire Fusiliers, who was lying disabled by a bullet wound and surrounded by the enemy's swordsmen. In bringing him under cover he (Lieutenant Greaves) was struck by a bullet and killed — Lieutenant MacLean was mortally wounded — whilst the horses of Lieutenant-Colonel Adams and Lieutenant Viscount Fincastle were shot, as well as two troop horses.
Murray received the Victoria Cross for his actions, becoming the only journalist to be so honoured.