Born at Banff, Scotland, the son of Banff Sheriff Clerk James Duff (1729–1804) by his marriage to Helen Skene 1734–1764, he was a kinsman (first cousin once removed) to the second and third Earls of Fife.
In 1809 – Alexander Duff succeeded his brother, becoming the 3rd Earl Fife.
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The Calcutta Review was founded in May 1844, by Sir John William Kaye and Reverend Alexander Duff.
Princess Maud was the younger daughter of the Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife and Louise, Princess Royal.
In 1889, the 6th Earl Fife was further created Duke of Fife, in Scotland, and Marquess of Macduff, in the County of Banff, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, two days after his marriage to Princess Louise of Wales, the eldest daughter of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII).
Earl of Fife is a title that has been in existence twice: once as a Gaelic comital lordship in medieval Scotland, and from 1885 to 1912 as an earldom in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, created by Queen Victoria for Alexander Duff.
Among the passengers was Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, whose subsequent death in Egypt was ascribed to ill-health caused during the wreck, and his family, the Princess Royal and daughters Princesses Alexandra and Maud.
In 1889, Alexander Duff married Princess Louise, the third child and eldest daughter of the future King Edward VII; two days after the wedding, Queen Victoria elevated him to the dignity of Duke of Fife in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
In 1841 he married Catherine Duff (c.1820 – 1869), the daughter of General Sir Alexander Duff and sister of James Duff, 5th Earl Fife.
From 14 July 1915 she was stationed at Dover under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Duff Thomson Royal Naval Reserve and from April 1916 she was stationed at Dunkirk.