Viscount Chelsea

A carte-de-visite portrait of Viscount Chelsea (1812-1873).

The Rt. Hon. Henry Charles Cadogan, Viscount Chelsea, was the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Cadogan. Born on 15 February 1812 in South Audley Street, Mayfair, he was baptised in Palermo, Sicily, on 8 October 1813. He was educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford (B.A., 1832). On 12 July 1836 in Durham Cathedral, he married Mary Sarah Wellesley, daughter of the Hon. and Rev. Gerald Valerian Wellesley, Dean of Windsor, and Lady Emily Maud Cadogan. From 1841 to 1847 he was the (Conservative) Member of Parliament for Reading, and from 1852 to 1857, he was the Conservative representative for Dover. From 1858 to 1859, he was Secretary of the Embassy at Paris. He succeeded his father on 15 September 1864, becoming the 4th Earl of Cadogan. He died on 8 June 1873, at the age of 61, in Woodrising, Norfolk, and was buried in Chelsea.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 2 March 1861.

From an album compiled by Elizabeth Van de Weyer, wife of Jean Sylvain Van de Weyer, Belgian ambassador to the Court of St. James. The family lived at New Lodge in Berkshire.