Earl of Hopetoun, and the former Ethelred Anne Birch-Reynardson. He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he passed out in 1879. However, he chose not to join the regular army upon graduation. He later explained "the affairs of the family estate, to which I succeeded at 13, seemed to call for my personal attention". Subsequently, he devoted his attentions to managing the more than seventeen thousand hectares (42,500 acres) of family estate located around the Firth of Forth. He married, in London on 18 October 1886, Hersey Alice Eveleigh-de Moleyns (formerly Mullins), a Scots-born Irish aristocrat (daughter of the 4th Baron Ventry) then aged 19. They had two sons and a daughter; a second daughter died in infancy. Their elder son, Victor, became Viceroy and Governor-General of India (1936–43), after having declined the governorship of Madras and the governor-generalship of Australia. In 1883, Hopetoun became Conservative whip in the House of Lords and served as a Lord in Waiting to Queen Victoria from June 1885 to January 1886 and August 1886 to August 1889. From 1887 to 1889 he was also appointed Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Governor of Victoria In 1889 he was appointed Governor of Victoria (and additionally a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George), where he served until 1895. His appointment came amid a general stylistic change in colonial governors. Reflecting "Britain's more flamboyant pride in Empire, Australian colonial governors began to display a new colour and ostentation". Increased interest in Empire had spurred the appearance of young and wealthy aristocrats in place of previous career administrators. Hopetoun's time as Governor was in keeping with the newly emerging style. He rapidly developed a reputation for lavish entertaining and spectacular vice-regal galas. Notwithstanding poor health and colonial astonishment at his habit of wearing hair-powder, his youthful enthusiasm for routine duties and his fondness for informal horseback tours won him many friends. Hopetoun's term coincided with a number of serious difficulties being faced by the colonies. The economic boom in the colony was reversed by the Great Crash in 1891, leading to a decade of depression, bank failures, industrial action and political instability. In contrast to the troubles faced during this period by other colonial governors, Hopetoun by most accounts handled this period ably and subsequently stayed in office for