The fourth son of James Talbot, 4th Baron Talbot of Malahide and his wife, Maria Margaretta Murray, Talbot was born at Malahide Castle in September 1854. He was educated in England at Wellington College. Talbot made one appearance in first-class cricket for the Gentlemen of the South against the Players of the North at Chelsea in 1875. Batting twice in the match, Talbot was dismissed for a single run in the South's first-innings by Fred Morley, while in their second-innings he was dismissed without scoring by the same bowler.
Military career
Afghanistan
Talbot attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich as a gentleman cadet and on 29 October 1873 was appointed to the temporary rank of lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. He gained that rank permanently in August 1876. Talbot served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War on the staff of Major-General Ross and was mentioned in dispatches by him after the Battle of Kandahar. Talbot joined the Afghan Boundary Commission as a surveyor in 1884. He was promoted to the rank of Captain in January 1885 and to the brevet rank of Major in February 1887, in recognition of his service with the commission. Talbot was commended for his diligent surveying work in cold conditions over rough terrain. It was also noted that despite being of the noblest blood of any of the surveyors he did not rely on his aristocratic rank and when one of his colleagues fell ill in the field he tended to him as a nurse. Talbot's work included a survey of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. He donated a rare 10th-century Afghan Dirham to the British Museum.
Sudan
On 15 November 1892 Talbot was appointed a staff officer at army headquarters and he became Deputy Assistant Adjutant General on 1 September 1895, holding that position for two years. Between 1897 and 1899 Talbot served on the staff of General Kitchener during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan. He was mentioned in dispatches in September 1898 by Kitchener for his actions at the Battle of Omdurman. He later served on secondment to the Egyptian Army and was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 15 November 1898. On 1 March 1900 Talbot was granted the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel; this was later antedated to 18 February 1900. In 1900 Talbot was appointed director of surveys in the Sudan. On 2 August 1900 he was granted permission by Queen Victoria to accept the appointment as a third class member of the Ottoman Order of Osmanieh. He received promotion to the brevet rank of colonel on 29 November 1900, later antedated to 6 January 1900. On 21 December 1903 he was authorised to accept appointment to the second class of the Ottoman Order of the Medjidieh. Talbot was placed on half pay from 1 January 1905 having reached the limit of five years in rank as a lieutenant-colonel and retired from the army on 22 April. At some point after this, he served as military attaché to the British legation at Brussels.
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War he was recalled to service for special duties at the War Office as a General Staff Officer of the 1st grade, with effect from 22 September 1914. Talbot, with Major-General Charles Edward Callwell, Captain Cecil Lambert, Captain Herbert Richmond and the Admiralty's Director of Transport Graeme Thompson was part of a committee put together in September 1914 to plan for a naval landing at Gallipoli. Talbot recorded that Callwell considered it was "likely to prove an extremely difficult operation of war" but thought a force of sixty thousand men could prevail. Callwell had previously been against such an operation and may well have been persuaded to change his mind by Winston Churchill's force of will. Talbot had returned to the retired list by 14 January 1916 when he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. He assisted Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan, with preparations for the defence of that country as a member of the Permanent Committee of Defence in 1916.
