[image error] Sir William Gordon-Cumming was a man of his era – a late nineteenth-century playboy with royal connections and a love of gambling and womanising. He had stalked tigers in India, fought the Mahdi in the Sudan and been shipwrecked off southern Africa. He also had a habit of swearing loudly although, thankfully for the delicate ears of his aristocratic friends, this was usually in Hindustani.

In England he became firm favourite with the 'in' set, including Albert, Prince of Wales, later Edward VI...