Richard Hannay returns to the front lines and participates in desperate fighting following the Germans' massive, last-ditch effort to win the war. Soon after the end of the war, Hannay marries Mary Lamington, and the following year they have a son, Peter John Hannay. The boy is named after Hannay's two great friends John Scantlebury Blenkiron (an American businessman and spy who had often helped him) and Peter Pienaar ("Mr Standfast"), an old Boer scout who seems to have been a kind of father-figure to him. The family settles in Mary's old home in the Cotswolds, Fosse Manor, Oxfordshire and Hannay (now
James Ballantyne Hannay James Ballantyne Hannay James Ballantyne Hannay FRSE(1855–1931) was a Scottish chemist who believed he had synthesized diamond in 1880. However, modern testing showed that the surviving samples from his experiments were natural diamond, not synthetic. While his techniques were conducive to diamond formation, modern diamond production – not achieved until the 1950s – requires capabilities not available in Hannay's time. Hannay was also known for making precision instruments. James Ballantyne Hannay was born at 22 Monteith Row in Glasgow on New Year's Day, 1855. His father was Alexander Hannay, tool-maker, who owned property in Helensburgh and who was the proprietor