Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea

For other persons, see Sidney Herbert (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable
The Lord Herbert of Lea
PC

Sidney Herbert, by Sir Francis Grant
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office
8 February 1855  23 February 1855
Monarch Victoria
Prime Minister The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by Sir George Grey, Bt
Succeeded by Lord John Russell
Secretary of State for War
In office
18 June 1859  22 July 1861
Monarch Victoria
Prime Minister The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by Jonathan Peel
Succeeded by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bt
Personal details
Born 16 September 1810 (1810-09-16)
Died 2 August 1861(1861-08-02) (aged 50)
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Liberal
Spouse(s) Elizabeth à Court-Repington
(1822–1911)
Alma mater Oriel College, Oxford

Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea PC (16 September 1810 – 2 August 1861) was an English statesman and a close ally and confidant of Florence Nightingale.

Early life

He was the younger son of George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke; his mother being the Russian noblewoman Countess Catherine Woronzow (or Vorontsov), daughter of the Russian ambassador to St James's, Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov.[1][2] The Woronzow Road in St John's Wood, London, is named after the family.[1] Educated at Harrow and Oriel College, Oxford, he made a reputation at the Oxford Union as a speaker.

Career

Herbert entered the House of Commons as Conservative member of Parliament for a division of Wiltshire in 1832. Under Peel he held minor offices, and in 1845 was included in the cabinet as Secretary at War, and again held this office from 1852 to 1855, being responsible for the War Office during the Crimean War, and again in 1859.

Herbert was a member of the Canterbury Association from 20 March 1848.[3]

Herbert ran the Pembroke family estates, centered at Wilton House, Wiltshire, for most of his adult life. His elder half-brother, Robert Herbert, 12th Earl of Pembroke (1791–1862), had chosen to live in exile in Paris after a disastrous marriage in 1814 (annulled 1818) to a Sicilian princess, Ottavia Spinelli (1779–1857), widow of Prince Ercole Branciforte di Butera, and daughter of the Duke of Laurino, and a subsequent liaison with Alexina Gallot, which resulted in four illegitimate children.

It was Sidney Herbert who sent Florence Nightingale out to Scutari, and with Nightingale led the movement for Army Health and War Office reform after the war. The hard work entailed caused a breakdown in his health, so that in July 1861, having been created a baron in the peerage of the United Kingdom, he had to resign office. He died from Bright's disease on 2 August 1861. His statue by Foley was placed in front of the War Office in Pall Mall, London, and after that building's demolition placed next to A.G. Walker's statue of Florence Nightingale in Waterloo Place, adjacent to the Crimean Monument.

Family

49 Belgrave Square, Herbert's home from 1851
Stipple engraving by W. Holl after G. Richmond.

In the early 1840s, Herbert is thought to have had an affair with the noted society beauty and author Caroline Norton, who was unable to get a divorce from an abusive husband, so that the relationship ended in 1846.

In 1846 Sidney Herbert married Elizabeth (b. Richmond, 21 July 1822; d. Herbert House, London, 30 October 1911), only daughter of Lt.-Gen. Charles Ash à Court-Repington and niece of William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury. She was a philanthropist, author and translator, and a friend of Benjamin Disraeli, Cardinal Manning and Cardinal Vaughan. After her husband's death, Lady Herbert became an "ardent ultramontane" Roman Catholic, along with their eldest daughter, Mary.

Sidney and Elizabeth Herbert lived at 49 Belgrave Square, London, and had seven children:

  1. George Robert Charles Herbert (1850–1895), who succeeded in the title and later became the 13th Earl of Pembroke, and the barony is now merged in that earldom.
  2. Sidney Herbert (1853–1913), also a Member of Parliament, who succeeded his brother as the 14th Earl of Pembroke.
  3. William Reginald Herbert (1854–1870), lost at sea aboard HMS Captain, aged 16.
  4. Michael Henry Herbert (The Hon. Sir Michael Herbert, KCMG, CB, PC) (1857–1904), after whom the town of Herbert in Saskatchewan, Canada, is named, was a diplomat who ended his career as British Ambassador to the US in Washington DC in succession to Lord Pauncefote. He m. 1888 Lelia ('Belle'), daughter of Richard Thornton Wilson, Sr., a New York banker and cotton broker, and had (with one other son) Sir Sidney Herbert, 1st Baronet.
  5. Mary Catherine (1849–1935), who m. 1873 the great modernist theologian, Baron (Freiherr) Friedrich von Hügel.
  6. Elizabeth Maud (1851–1933), who m. 1872 the composer, Sir Charles Hubert Parry, 1st Baronet (son of Thomas Gambier Parry), of Highnam Court, near Gloucester.
  7. Constance Gwladys (1859–1917), who m. 1st 1878 St George Henry Lowther, 4th Earl of Lonsdale (issue, 1 daughter) and m. 2ndly 1885 Frederick Oliver Robinson, the Earl de Grey, later 2nd and last Marquess of Ripon (no issue).

Sidney Herbert is buried in the churchyard at Wilton, rebuilt by his father in neo-Romanesque style, with inside the church a marble monumental effigy of him beside Elizabeth, his wife (who, however, was buried at St Joseph's Missionary College, Mill Hill, where she was a notable patron).

Herbert Sound in the Antarctic and Pembroke, Ontario in Canada are named after Sidney Herbert. Mount Herbert, the highest peak on Banks Peninsula, was named by the chief surveyor of the Canterbury Association, Joseph Thomas, in 1849.[3][4]

Statue of Lord Herbert of Lea at Waterloo Place, London.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Woronzow, HumphrysFamilyTree, accessed 4 April 2012
  2. Lundy, Darryl. Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, ThePeerage.com, accessed 23 May 2012
  3. 1 2 Blain, Rev. Michael (2007). The Canterbury Association (1848–1852): A Study of Its Members’ Connections (PDF). Christchurch: Project Canterbury. pp. 42–43. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  4. Hight, James; C. R. Straubel (1957). A History of Canterbury. Volume I : to 1854. Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. p. 121.

Sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sidney Herbert.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency Member of Parliament for South Wiltshire
1832–1861
With: John Benett to 1852
William Wyndham 1852–1859
Lord Henry Thynne from 1859
Succeeded by
Frederick Hervey-Bathurst
Lord Henry Thynne
Political offices
Preceded by
Robert Gordon
James Alexander Stewart-Mackenzie
Joint Secretary to the Board of Control
1834–1835
Succeeded by
Robert Gordon
Robert Vernon Smith
Preceded by
John Parker
First Secretary of the Admiralty
1841–1845
Succeeded by
Hon. Henry Lowry-Corry
Preceded by
Sir Thomas Fremantle, Bt
Secretary at War
1845–1846
Succeeded by
Hon. Fox Maule
Preceded by
William Beresford
Secretary at War
1852–1854
Succeeded by
The Duke of Newcastle
Preceded by
Sir George Grey, Bt
Secretary of State for the Colonies
1855
Succeeded by
Lord John Russell
Preceded by
Jonathan Peel
Secretary of State for War
1859–1861
Succeeded by
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bt
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Herbert of Lea
1861
Succeeded by
George Herbert
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