Captain Peters

A carte-de-visite portrait of a man wearing snow shoes and snow goggles amidst some snowy hillocks mocked up from a few sheets; the sitter is identified verso only as ‘Capt. Peters.’ This is probably the photographer's son Henry Peters, an identification supported by other portraits of Henry Peters today in the possession of his family.

Born on 10 May 1835 at Beckenham Place in Kent, Henry Peters was baptised on 13 June 1835 St George's Church in Beckenham. His father was the banker William Peters of Beckenham Place, Beckenham (later of Ashfold House, Slaugham, Sussex). His mother was Marianne Jane (née Bonham), daughter of the politician Henry Bonham. His paternal grandfather Henry Peters of Betchworth Castle in Surrey was a partner in the banking firm of Masterman & Co of 34 Nicholas Lane, London (later Masterman, Peters, Mildred, Masterman & Co).

He appears on the 1841 census, the middle of three children living with their parents at Beckenham Place; the household included twelve servants.

In 1851 he was a fifteen-year-old ‘Scholar at Home.’ That same year he joined the Royal Toxophilite Society.

On 4 June 1853 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, but later that year migrated to Magdalene College. He did not graduate.

He is possibly the Henry Peters who joined the 1st Royal Surrey Militia as an Ensign in 1855 (Morning Post, 7 February 1855). A short while later he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant (Morning Post, 28 April 1855). According to Hart’s Army List (1860) he was still a Lieutenant serving in the same regiment.

Aged 43, in 1878, he is listed among the passengers as a ‘Gentleman’ arriving at the port of New York aboard the SS Russia.

He appears on the 1880 United States census as an ‘Agriculturalist’ living in Enterprise, Florida, an unincorporated community on the north shore of Lake Monroe in Volusia County. Also present on the night of the census were two black servants, a white employee and a 25-year-old friend named Beckman Finley from New York.

He died, aged 51, in Florida on 10 August 1886 and was buried in Osteen Cemetery at Deltona, Volusia County, Florida. His gravestone reads; ‘In memory of / Henry / son of William Peters / Ashfold, Sussex, Eng. / Died Aug. 10, 1886 / aged 51 / dearly loved.’

Photographed by the banker and amateur photographer William Peters of Ashford House, Slaugham, Sussex (formerly of Beckenham in Kent).