Duke was the second son of William Edward Duke, a granite merchant of Merrivale, Devon, and his wife Elizabeth Ann (née Lord).
Merrivale, Devon, hamlet with nearby neolithic stone rows (formerly also spelled Merivale)
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Merrivale, KwaZulu-Natal is a small town in the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal Province
On 19 January 1925 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Merrivale, of Walkhampton in the County of Devon.
The extensive quarries at Foggintor provided granite for the construction of London's Nelson's Column in the early 1840s, and New Scotland Yard was faced with granite from the quarry at Merrivale.