Duke of Beaufort

Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, was born in Paris on 1 February 1824.

On the 8 July 1845, he married Lady Georgina Curzon-Howe (29 September 1825 –14 May 1906) at Hampton.

A 'gentleman carriage driver' and a noted sportsman, in the 1880s the Duke wrote a series of 23 books on various sporting interests. He was also a patron of homeopathy.

He died at Stoke Gifford on 30 April 1899.

Photographed by Oliver Sarony of Scarborough.

The reverse of the mount carries a wetstamp identifying Miss Bond of Southsea as the artist who has applied the hand-colouring to the print. In a letter that he wrote to Mrs Bessie Hatch on 14 March 1877, the photographer and author Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) divulged that he thought her ‘the best photographic colourist living.' The name 'Miss Bond' disguised the fact that the work was done by two women, both named Elizabeth Bond, widow and daughter respectively of wine merchant Henry Bond.