Two of the Duke’s half-brothers were engaged in the South African war; Lord Charles Bentinck was a Lieutenant in the 9th Lancers and was slightly wounded in the siege of Mafeking; for his services he won a medal and a brevet-majority.  He was born in 1868 and was educated at Eton; he married in 1897 a daughter of Mr. Charles Seymour Grenfell of Taplow.  In the East Midlands he has won considerable popularity as Master of the Blankney Hunt.

Lord William Bentinck was a Captain in the 10th Hussars and showed his ardour in the war by endeavouring to form a body of Colonial Mounted Rifles.

Among the eccentricities laid to the charge of the old Duke it was said that on his young heir going to visit him on one occasion at Welbeck, he ordered him to stand in a corner of the room.

When in 1879 the old Duke passed away from his world of mysteries and escapades, the heir was a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.  He was not long in the Army, and when he came into the title there were too many other engagements for him to attend to without troubling himself as to the routine of military duty, though he kept up a connection with the forces by becoming Lieutenant-Colonel of the Honourable Artillery Company of London, Honorary Colonel of the 1st Lanarkshire Volunteer Artillery, and of the 4th Battalion Sherwood Foresters Regiment.

Welbeck soon began to assume a new aspect under his regime.  Gradually it lost its appearance of a contractor’s yard and looked like one of the stately homes of England.

Looking back to the time when he first came into his noble heritage, the Duke made a touching reference at the Welbeck Tenants’ Show, in 1906, to the death of his agent, Mr. F.J.  Turner, who for 48 years was in the service of the fifth Duke and himself.

“When I first came to Welbeck, now twenty-seven years ago,” said the Duke, “I was a mere boy, very ignorant of the ways of the world, and more ignorant still, if it were possible, of business habits and of the management of a great estate.  I shudder to think what might have been my fate, and the sad fate of those dependent upon me, if Mr. Turner and others, who guided my footsteps, had been different from what they proved themselves to be.  It was in his power to make or mar the happiness and prosperity, not only of myself, but also of many of those who live in this district and who farm my land.”

The Duke followed the traditions of his family and commenced to form an expensive racing stud.

In 1882 his attention was concentrated to a considerable degree upon this object.  He bought the famous sire, St. Simon, at the sale of the late Prince Batthyany’s horses.  St. Simon could not compete in the classic races in consequence of the death of his owner, and all through his racing career he was not put to any severe test of speed, or most likely his name would have represented the double achievement of being a famous racer, and the sire of famous racers too.