 He was the son of Henry Bethune Patton (1835-1915) CB, a Colonel in the British Army with local rank of Brigadier-General, and his second wife Georgina Emma Minet (1845-1918).The name Bethune came from an ancestress, Mary Bethune, who had married Henry Patton in 1749.One of his uncles was General Walter Douglas Phillips Patton-Bethune.