Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Dallas Cairns, 4th Earl Cairns, CMG, DL (28 November 1865 – 23 October 1946), was a peer of the United Kingdom and a Rifle Brigade officer.
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Life
Born in 1865, he succeeded as the 4th Earl Cairns on the death of his older brother, Herbert, in 1905.
He bought and restored Farleigh House at Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset and lived there for most of the second half of his life, during which time he was an active member of the Bath and County Club.
Military career
Cairns was commissioned an officer in The Rifle Brigade, and served in the 3rd battalion. After retiring, he was on 9 February 1898 appointed a major of the 5th (Militia) battalion, previously the Queen's Own Royal Tower Hamlets Light Infantry (2nd Tower Hamlets Militia), based in Bethnal Green in the East End of London.
Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Cairns volunteers for service when his militia regiment was embodied in 1900. After peace was declared in May 1902, he left South Africa on board the SS Bavarian and arrived in the United Kingdom the following month.