Victor Brooke

Who was Victor Brooke?

Sir Victor Alexander Brooke, 3rd Baronet, was an Anglo-Irish naturalist and baronet. He was the father of Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, and grandfather of Sir Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

He was the son of Sir Arthur Brooke, 2nd Baronet, an Ulster aristocrats from County Fermanagh in the north of Ireland and succeeded to his title and the Colebrook estate in 1854. He studied at Harrow and then traveled abroad, being a keen sportsman who enjoyed big game hunting. His proposed work on antelopes remained unfinished at his death. The plates by Joseph Smit and Joseph Wolf were later reused in Philip Sclater and Oldfield Thomas's The Book of Antelopes.

He was a magistrate, deputy lieutenant and Sheriff of Fermanagh.

He married Alice Sophia, daughter of Sir Alan Edward Bellingham, 3rd Baronet, in 1864. After their marriage they settled at a villa in Pau, France, where they had at least six children. The youngest was Alan - later Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke.

Brooke died of pneumonia in Pau in November 1891, aged 48, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Arthur. Lady Brooke died in July 1920.