Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart

Lord Ninian Edward Crichton-Stuart
Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart
Born	(1883-05-15)15 May 1883 Ayrshire, Scotland
Died	2 October 1915(1915-10-02) (aged 32) Loos-en-Gohelle, France
Buried	Bethune Town Cemetery
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service / branch	British Army
Years of service	1903–1915
Rank	Lieutenant-Colonel
Unit	Welch Regiment
Battles / wars	World War I

Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ninian Edward Crichton-Stuart (15 May 1883 – 2 October 1915) was a Scottish senior officer in the British Army and Member of Parliament. He was killed in action in the First World War. The second son of the Honourable Gwendolen Mary Anne Fitzalan-Howard and John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, he entered the army in 1903 and served in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Scots Guards as a lieutenant. After marrying he began a career in politics, serving first as a councillor on Fife County Council, Scotland. His family having close connections to the city of Cardiff in Wales, he fought and lost the January 1910 election there as a Liberal Unionist candidate. The resulting hung parliament led to a second election in December 1910, in which Crichton-Stuart won the seat.

In 1912, he took command of the 6th (Glamorgan) Battalion, The Welch Regiment. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered his unit for service and joined the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. After eleven months on the front line, he was shot in the head and killed when leading his men in an attempt to repel a German counter-attack on 2 October 1915 during the Battle of Loos. He was one of 22 MPs that were killed during the conflict and the only serving MP from Wales to be killed.

The home ground of Cardiff City F.C. was named Ninian Park after Crichton-Stuart offered to be a guarantor for the football club's rental of the site. After his death, a statue of Crichton-Stuart was erected in Cathays Park in Cardiff.