Born in London on the 31st of August 1833, the only [surviving?] son of Arthur Vansittart of Shottesbrook or Shottesbrooke Park, near Maidenhead, and Foots Cray, Kent, and his wife Diana Sarah [Sara?], daughter of General Sir John Gustavus Crosbie, of Watergate, Sussex, whom he had married at Upmarden, Sussex, on the 26th of March 1831.
The family came from Danzig before settlement in England and was formerly van Sittart.
[PB: I think CRV may occasionally have signed himself "van Sittart", at least in early life.]
According to the Dictionary of National Biography:
"The first to live in Britain was Peter van Sittart, a merchant involved in the Russia trade, who arrived in London about 1670 and died 1705. Merchants and traders, the family traced its origin to Siddard, a town in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands, but [his] ancestors had moved to Julich and eventually to Danzig, and from there ... Peter van Sittart went to London about 1670. Having made a fortune in trading with Russia, India, and the south seas, he became a governor of the Russia Company and a director of the East India Company."[Source: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28103?docPos=4(accessed 15.3.2013).]
General Sir John Crosbie had entered the army as an ensign in the 67th Foot in June 1780, commanded the 22nd Foot from September of 1794, going on to half-pay in June of 1800. He became a General in July of 1830. He was nominated to the Grand Cross of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order in 1837 and died in August 1843.
Coleraine Vansittart's father, Arthur, had formerly served in the 2nd Life Guards and after his death on the 22nd of April 1859 was buried in Clewer churchyard, his tomb bearing the inscription, "Arthur Vansittart, eldest son of the late Colonel and the Hon. Mrs Vansittart of Shottesbrook Park, Berkshire." He died at 18 Marlborough Place, St. John's Wood, London. His wife does not appear to have been buried with him.
[PB: Where did he go to school? Was it Eton, only a few miles away from Shottesbrooke?]
Cornet in the 11th Hussars: 17th of April 1852.
Lieutenant, 11th Hussars: 30th of September 1853.
Returned to England from the Crimea, "on personal private affairs", 7th of February 1855.
[PB: CHECK DATE (7th of February 1855). Can this be so? Fanny Duberly mentions him a number of times in the period March-July 1855. Notice also their lifestyle, relations among French and British Officers etc.]
From Fanny Duberly's Journal:
Saturday, 24th [March 1855]
Can this be a journal of a campaign? I think I must change its name to a new edition of the "Racing Calendar."
The French races to-day were very amusing. The course was crowded, the sun shone, and French officers were riding at full gallop everywhere, and making their horses go through all the tricks of the manege. The "steeple-chase" course, "avec huit obstacles," was delightful: the hurdles were not sufficiently high to puzzle an intelligent and active poodle; the ditches were like the trenches in a celery bed; and the wall about two feet and a half high.
[Mr Vansittart and I rode over the course - two ditches each about a foot wide, two tolerable hurdles and a stone wall about two foot and a half. (Kelly, p157)]
But it was a very merry meeting. We rode up with Captain Lushington, Colonel Douglas, Colonel Somerset, Mr. Vansittart, and Major Peel, and afterwards lunched with le Comte Bertrand, on game pie and champagne.
Monday, 26th [March 1855]
Races at the Fourth Division; chiefly remarkable for the difference between the Englishman's and Frenchman's idea of a fence. To-day we had a formidable wall of four foot, built as firmly as possible, while the ground on either side was hard enough to make it anything but a tempting jump.
Wednesday, March 28th [1855]
More races. Count Bertrand, Mr. Foster, Captain Lushington, Colonel Somerset, and Mr. Vansittart came to luncheon, and we rode afterwards to the course. "Goodboy", ridden by Captain Thomas, came in an easy winner. The day was most lovely, but too hot for enjoyment. We fancied that summer was come, and that we had done with the cold weather.
July 10th [1855]
The chances of my being able to get away, at any rate for some time, are getting less and less. Every body seems to be going home. I sent the first part of my journal to England by an officer going home sick; another, who has been out here about a fortnight, returns immediately from the same cause [...]
Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Vansittart, who lent me a very quiet pony, I was able this afternoon to leave the shadow of my tent, with which I was getting sorely discontented, and to reach once more the cliffs overlooking the sea. I know of hardly any more lovely spot than the one we chose as our resting-place this afternoon. Before us lay the sea, blue, serene, and quiet, 'like beauty newly dead'.
To our right and left rose the magnificent outlines of a coast naturally stern and terrible, but now bathed in a flood of rose-coloured light, with which the setting sun soothed the landscape, all flushed and scorched before from the power of his great heat; while round us, and underneath our feet, grass, leaves, and flowers looked up with pale, exhausted faces, thirsting for the evening dew.
Sir Henry Keppel, G.C.B., D.C.L., mentions Coleraine Vansittart (his nephew) several times both in the Crimea and the following year in England in his highly readable (and frequently hilarious and gossipy) A Sailor's Life under Four Sovereigns:
October 19 [1855].
Dinner at a Kamiesch restaurant - Duberlys, Vansittart, St. George Foley, Charlie Windham, and Lewis and Earle, A.D.C.'s, Prince Victor and Thompson, Sir William Gordon and Lord Dunkellin...
October 24.
Review of cavalry and horse artillery: none like them in the world: near 3000 strong.
October 28.
Picnic at Baidar - Belgravian ladies, Prince Victor, T. Duberly, etc. Former lost their way coming back...
November 3.
We formed a cheery party for a ride towards Bilbek, consisting of Prince Victor, the Duberlys, Mark Kerr, Coleraine Vansittart, and self, about 13 miles distant. The country hilly, grassy, and bushy; weather perfect.
The attendants had arranged our picnic on a flat space on a hilly point. We had arranged ourselves to feed, when one of our party found we had disturbed a cavalry vedette of our own countrymen on an adjacent point. A ravine between, they could not conveniently get at us.
While things were getting ready rode to the western edge of our selected spot and found we had likewise disturbed a nest of Cossacks. Our small party were not long in packing up this nice little Picnic.
Being well mounted, I waited to take a farewell peep, and from my position saw a greasy Cossack, about 30 feet below me, looking about with his carbine across his saddle, I suppose for something to eat.
![Photograph of Coleraine Vansittart [unknown date or source]. Copy in EJB collection. Click to enlarge.](/allmen/allmenV/allmenV_11H/vansittart_c_11H/vansittart_c_11H_keppel_cossack_sketch_512x625.jpg "Photograph of Coleraine Vansittart [unknown date or source. Copy in EJB collection].")
(Click on image to enlarge)
Being hungry myself, I overtook our party about to picnic a quarter of a mile off, Mark Kerr riding, as usual, without his hat...
November 28.
Vansittart, taking his departure, leaves me his horse to forward to his mother...
July 30 [1856] (Goodwood).
To Goodwood Races. Met many friends: George Payne, Admiral Rous, T. Whichcote, Crosbie, Joseph Hawley, Colonel Vansittart, etc. Dined at Goodwood. Found General Barnard on return to West Dean...
[PB: Presumably another Vansittart, since RCV was a Captain when he retired in November 156.]
August 2.
To Drayton Station by 8.30 train to London. Lost portmanteau. To club...
Back to London Bridge Station - no tidings of lost portmanteau - horrid bore! By 4.30 train to Snodlands and Leyburn Grange. Found Georgie and Sara Hawley, Coleraine and Diana coming afterwards. A love of a place this Grange. Everything in good taste and perfect order.
Interesting inspection of Hawley's extensive paddocks. Dinner and cooking in keeping with everything else in this cheery spot."
Henry Keppel caricature for Vanity Fairby James Tissot, 1876.
(Click on image to enlarge)
[Source: All three volumes of Henry Keppel's memoir are available in various digital editions, for example at http://archive.org/details/sailorslifeunder02keppiala. The quotations above are from volume 2 (accessed 13.3.2013).]
Notes: Keppel was Coleraine Vansittart's uncle. In 1839 he married Katherine Louisa Crosbie (died 5th of June 1859), eldest daughter of General Sir John Gustavus Crosbie (and sister of Coleraine Vansittart's mother, Sara Diana Crosbie). Sara Diana is almost certainly the "Diana" he finds with "Coleraine" at Leyburn Grange.
Both Keppel and Vansittart families, as their names suggest, had Dutch origins, with strong links to the East India Company. Keppel was the son of William Charles Keppel, fourth Earl of Albemarle, and Elizabeth Southwell, daughter of Lord de Clifford.
For outlines of his life, see his entries in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Keppel, and the Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34297?docPos=1.
Horse Guards,
9th February 1856.
Sir, - I have the honour by direction of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday's date and its enclosure and to acquaint you that his Lordship has no objection to Captain Vansittart of the 11th Hussars exchanging to the Depot with Captain Trevelyan[ADD LINK], with the understanding that the latter officer proceeds to the Crimea by the 29th inst, and it being distinctly understood that the former will be No. 1 on the roster for foreign service.
I have, &c. &c.,
G. A. Weatherall, AG.
[To:] Colonel Douglas, 11th Hussars.
Horse Guards,
8th August 1856.
Sir, - I am directed to signify to you by the orders of his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief that you proceed forthwith to Exeter to join the Depot of the 11th Hussars. You are requested to acknowledge the receipt of this letter.
I have,&c. &c.,
W. F. Forster, AAG.
[To:] Captain Vansittart, Simmonds Hotel, Conduit Street.
On leave until retirement, by the sale of his commission, on the 9th of November 1856.
Lieutenant Vansittart served the Eastern campaign of 1854 and up to the 7th of February 1855, including the affair of the Bulganak, battle of the Alma, and the Siege of Sebastopol. (Medal and Clasps.)
There seems to be no clear reason why he was not at Balaclava or Inkerman, the muster rolls showing him as being "0n board ship" from the 5th-17th of September 1854 (this was during the voyage of the Allies from Varna to the Crimea proper), and "On shore" with the regiment from the 18th of September right through until the 6th of February 1855, when he left for England.
The "Remarks" column is completely blank for this period and shows no entry for his being "Sick" or otherwise employed on any extra-regimental duty.
Canon Lummis, Honour the Light Brigade, states that Lieutenant Vansittart went to Scutari "On duty" on the 14th of September 1854, but there is no documentary evidence to support this and if he had done so would not have been at the Alma on the 20th of September. The Regimental History also confirms only two clasps.
[PB: Similarly, RCV's memorial at Shottesbrook only claims his presence at Alma and the Siege of Sebastopol.]
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma and Sebastopol and the Turkish Medal.
1861 Census
13, Queen Street, St George Hanover Square.
Coleraine R Vansittart, 27, retired Captain in the Army, born Chichester, Sussex.
Two servants are also shown.
1871 Census
1, House, Belgrave Street, St George Hanover Square.
Coleraine R. Vansittart, 38, lodger, annuitant, born London.
![Photograph of Coleraine Vansittart [unknown date or source]. Copy in EJB collection. Click to enlarge.](vansittart_c_11H/vansittart_c_11H_port_600x871.jpg "Photograph of Coleraine Vansittart [unknown date or source. Copy in EJB collection].")
He was known to his family and friends as "Poppy", on account of his great height and long flowing yellow [PB: red?] beard. (His father was even taller, and was in fact one of the tallest men ever to have served in the Household Cavalry.)
He was a crack pigeon shot, and with his friends Lords Huntingfield and Stanford made the sport of pigeon shooting fashionable after his return from the Crimea. He was one of the founders of "The Gun Club", and was also a member of the Hurlingham Club.
He resided mostly in Paris, and was one of the originators of the French shooting club, "Tir au Pigeon", in the Bois du Boulogne where a prize named after him was shot for annually.
Sometime a patron of the Turf, he ran horses in France during the Second Empire. An excellent judge of a horse and a personal friend of Napoleon III, he was invariably consulted as to the horses in the Imperial stables. In fact, most of the credit bestowed on General Fleury, Master of the Horse, was due to him.
In 1868 he accompanied his friend Prince Achille Murat (who had married the Princess Mingrelia) on his honeymoon to the Caucasus, the Emperor putting a French warship at their disposal for the voyage. After spending some time in Russia and Persia, he returned to Paris, where he eventually died.
[PB: Prince Achille Murat? Obviously not Napoleon I's nephew, who died 1847 having emigrated to the US (Wikipedia: Prince Achille Murat(1801-1847)). And Princess Mingrelia? Presumably not Wikipedia: Ekaterine Dadiani, Princess of Mingrelia(1816-1882). So who?]
[PB: In the same year, Vansittart appeared in a remarkable painting by James Tissot of the Circle of the Rue Royale(1868), an exclusive all-male private club founded in 1852. Tissot's painting brilliantly evokes the Second Empire milieu that came to an end shortly afterwards in the Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune of 1870-71. Each paid 1000 francs towards the painting, whose eventual owner would be selected by lot. The winner was Baron Hottinger, seated to the right of the sofa. The painting remained in his family until 2011, when it was purchased by the Musée d'Orsay. More ...]
The Musee d'Orsay (and Wikipedia) misnames him as "Vansittard" (and "Vansittant"?), and wrongly locates him in a key as the man standing behind.
[PB: I believe the exhibition catalogue contains an chapter on the "The Circle". The catalogue was edited by Gloria Groom and is available in English. It was published by The Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. It would be good to locate this. ]
Robert Coleraine Vansittart died in his rooms at No 15 Rue Vernet, Paris, on the 14th of April 1886. His body was brought back to England and buried in St Mary's Walton-on-Thames on the 20th of April 1886.
In 1993 it was learnt that memorials (in identical form) to him and his sister exist in the semi-private church of St. John the Baptist at Shottesbrook, Berkshire (in the Park grounds).
That for CRV reads:
"In memory of Coleraine Robert Vansittart of Shottesbrook Park. Captain in the Eleventh Hussars. Elder son of Arthur Vansittart of Shottesbrook Park. He served throughout the Crimean campaign of 1854 and 1855 and was present at the battle of the Alma and the Siege of Sebastopol. Born 1833 - Died 1886. His body rests at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey."
That for his sister reads:
"In memory of Rose Sophia Smith of Shottesbrook Park. Only daughter of Arthur Van Sittart and dearly loved wife of Oswald Augustus Smith of Hammerwood, Sussex. Born 1832 - Died 1892. Her body rests at Holtye, Sussex. Mine saith the Lord of Hosts, In that day when I make up my jewels. Mal; III v17."
[PB: It would be good to have a photograph of CV's memorial - I have not found one online, or indeed any reference to it.]
The Smith family still occupy Shottesbrook Park House, the present [1980s?] owner being Sir John Smith (one-time MP for Westminster and the City) - it was through him that knowledge of the existence of the memorials became known [to EJB].
Proof that a gravestone once existed for him in the churchyard of St. Mary's at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, came from a book published by a local historian in 1987 recording the gravestone inscriptions there. It shows the following, the grave being in the Old Cemetery 86/1:
Cross on cairn and kerb
On the front: "Diana Sarah Vansittart. Died 11th of May 1883. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the former things are passed away."
On the left side is "Coleraine Robert Vansittart of Shottesbrook Park, Berkshire and Foots Cray Place, Kent. Late Captain, 11th Hussars. Born August 31st 1833 - Died at Paris April 14th 1886. Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided."
[EJB: It would seem that the "Diana Sarah" mentioned was his mother, he being said to have been un-married. She would seemingly have died abroad too, as there is no record of her death at St. Catherine's House, neither is there a record of any will being proved for her.]
Next to this particular stone and in identical form (apart from the fact that the cross on the second stone has been broken off and is lying between the two stones) is to "Sarah Diana Hawley, died on the 9th of March 1881." This is followed by a text. Both stones are contained within a kerb and obviously connected.
[PB: Is there any possible confusion? "Diana Sara" was his mother. But she had a younger sister called "Sara Diana" who died in September 1881. ]
Subsequent checking of the burial records for the church shows that Diana Sarah [Sara?] Vansittart was brought from Paris and buried on the 15th of May 1881, aged 70 years.
Coleraine R. Vansittart was also brought from Paris and was buried on the 20th of April 1886, aged 52 years. (However, there is no trace of any Consul registered death for her as there is for him).
"Lady" Sarah Diana Hawley was brought from St. George's Parish, London, and buried on the 15th of March 1881, aged 58 years.
These ladies were sisters, and although they were baptised together at Funtington church, Sussex, on the 29 of April 1812, they were not twins [PB: Diana Sara [mother] appears to have been the second-born child, Sara Diana [aunt] the seventh-born.] The latter was the wife of Sir Joseph Henry Hawley, 3rd Baronet (whom she had married on the 18th of June 1839) and who died on the 20th of April 1875. Their London home was No 34 Eaton Place, Belgravia (where she most probably died); they also had a country house at Leybourne Grange, near Maidstone, Kent.
In his will, made in London on the 30th of January 1875, he left a personal estate of £26,360/19/1 (re-sworn to £26,810/19/9). All of his real and personal property was to go to his two executors, John Lewis Gordon [presumably Garden], of Reddeston Hall, Suffolk, and Robert Naysmith Long, of Lower Belgrave Street, London, formerly in the 12th Regiment. Only the former was alive when the will was proved on the 8th of May 1886.
His vested interests in family estates as trustee were left to Diana Bexley (baptised in the English Chapel, Avenue St. Honore, Paris, and daughter of John and Isabella Bexley) provided that:
"should she die before the age of 21 or be married before that time, then all was to remain in trust for the children (other than the eldest son) of my sister [Rose Sophia, died 8th of January 1892], wife of Oswald Augustus Smith, Esquire, in equal shares."
[PB: There must have been some legal dispute ("Bexley v Garden") over the terms of the will as an advertisement in the London Gazette, May 24th 1887, called for for creditors to come forward prior to a High Court adjudication. I have not been abe to discover anything more.]
[PB: Follow up Henry Wilkins's wife's novel [title?] that features a "Vansittart" rather prominently.]
Census information for 1861 and 1871 kindly provided by Chris Poole.