Henry Windsor Villiers-Stuart (13 September 1827 – 12 October 1895), was a British soldier, clergyman, politician,

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

, and author.

Parentage

He was the son of Henry Villiers-Stuart, 1st and last Baron Stuart de Decies, son of Lord Henry Stuart and his wife, Lady Gertrude Amelia, daughter of

George Mason-Villiers, 2nd Earl Grandison George Mason-Villiers, 2nd Earl Grandison PC (13 July 1751 – 14 July 1800), styled Viscount Villiers between 1767 and 1782, was a British peer from the Villiers family and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1780. Early lif ...

. His paternal great-grandfather was

John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute PC, FRS (30 June 1744 – 16 November 1814), styled Lord Mount Stuart until 1792 and known as The Earl of Bute between 1792 and 1794, was a British nobleman, coalfield owner, diplomat and politician who sat in ...

, son of Prime Minister

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguabl ...

. Henry Villiers-Stuart had a younger sister, Pauline, later Lady Wheeler Cuffe (died 5 July 1895). His mother was Theresia Pauline (née Ott), an Austrian

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. His parents married on 12 January 1826 in a Roman Catholic service at

St James's, Spanish Place St James' Church is a large English Gothic Catholic church in George Street, Marylebone, London. Although currently situated in George Street, the church maintains its connection with Spanish Place, the road opposite the current church, because ...

, London, and also under Scottish law, but there was uncertainty over whether Theresia was free to marry. As a result of this confusion the younger Henry Villiers-Stuart, after the death of his father in 1874, was unable to establish his claim to

the peerage The peerages in the United Kingdom are a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various noble ranks, and forming a constituent part of the British honours system. The term ''peerage'' can be used both collec ...

and become the 2nd

Baron Stuart de Decies Baron Stuart de Decies, of Dromana within the Decies in the County of Waterford, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 May 1839 for Henry Villiers-Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Decies, Henry Villiers-Stuart, Member ...

. Theresia's married name became Villiers-Stuart, and, as a result of her marriage, she was styled as Baroness Stuart de Decies on 10 March 1839. She died on 7 August 1867 at

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

, Germany and was interred at Villierstown,

County Waterford County Waterford ( ga, Contae Phort Láirge) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is part of the South-East Region, Ireland, South-East Region. It is named ...

, Ireland.

Career

Villiers-Stuart served in the Austrian Imperial Army from 1844 to 1846. He was in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

from 1846 to 1847 as an

Ensign An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be diffe ...

in the 20th Regiment of Foot. He afterwards attended

University College, Durham , motto_English = Not for ourselves alone , scarf = , established = , principal = Wendy Powers , vice_principal = Ellen Crabtree , undergraduates = 698 , postgraduates = 153 , coordinates = , location_map = Durham , map_size ...

and took his BA at

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

in 1850, graduating with a second-class degree in

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. In 1849 and still an undergraduate he took his first journey to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, with the intention of visiting sites mentioned in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

1850–1885

He was ordained in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

and served as Vicar of

Bulkington Bulkington is a large village and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Bedworth, in the Nuneaton and Bedworth district of Warwickshire, England.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : In the 2011 census the ward ...

, Warwickshire from 1852 to 1855, and of

Napton Napton on the Hill, often referred to locally as just Napton, is a village and civil parish east of Southam in Warwickshire, England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 1,144. Manor The toponym Napton is derived ...

from 1855 to 1871, when he resigned Holy Orders to pursue a political career and was successfully returned to Parliament for

in 1873, representing the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

. His father died the following year and he then resigned his seat so that he could pursue his claim to the barony of Stuart de Decies. However, Stuart-Villiers was unable to satisfactorily claim that his parents were legally married and was not allowed to assume the title. He was again elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

for County Waterford in 1880, a seat he held until 1885. While in parliament he was upfront about the economic difficulties faced by Irish landowners of his class. In 1880, he explained to his colleagues in the

that he had taken out a loan so he could afford to employ 200 men. Travels and Egyptology Stuart travelled extensively, and published many accounts of his wanderings, notably ''Adventures amid the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America'' (1891). He was in South America in 1858, in Jamaica in 1881, and he made several journeys through Egypt, and published various works on ancient and modern Egypt. After the British intervention in Egypt concluded with victory at the

Battle of Tell El Kebir The Battle of Tel El Kebir (often spelled Tel-El-Kebir) was fought on 13 September 1882 at Tell El Kebir in Egypt, 110 km north-north-east of Cairo. An entrenched Egyptian force under the command of Ahmed ʻUrabi was defeated by a British ...

in 1882 he was sent by the British government to report on the conditions of the people in that country, and produced several books on the topic, including ''Egypt after the War'', which received the special recognition of

Lord Dufferin Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (21 June 182612 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Vict ...

, and his reports were published as a parliamentary blue-book.Villiers-Stuart Collection in University College Cork Library Fund
ucc.ie; accessed 8 April 2014. The ''Durham University Journal'' noted in their obituary of Villiers-Stuart that ''The Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen'' was one of his more popular books. In this book he recalled a journey taken in Egypt in 1879, including a visit to

Deir el-Bahari Deir el-Bahari or Dayr al-Bahri ( ar, الدير البحري, al-Dayr al-Baḥrī, the Monastery of the North) is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt. This is a part of ...

, where he translated some of the

hieroglyphics Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

on the tomb of

Ramesses I Menpehtyre Ramesses I (or Ramses) was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the time-line of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. While Ra ...

. He also visited a canopy amidst the royal mummeries, recently discovered by Emile Brugsch, that formed the funeral tent of Queen Isi em Kheb, the mother-in-law of

Shishak Shishak, Shishaq or Susac (, Tiberian: , ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015.Shoshenq I and bib ...

, and inspired the title of the book. He was a member of the

Society of Biblical Archaeology The Society of Biblical Archaeology was founded in London in 1870 by Samuel Birch to further Biblical archaeology. It published a series of ''Proceedings'' in which some important papers read before the Society were preserved. In 1919 the Societ ...

. He also joined the

Egypt Exploration Fund The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization. The society was founded in 1882 by Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole in order to examine and excavate in the areas of Egypt and Sudan. The intent was to study and an ...

(EEF) and was concerned about the damage to Egyptian monuments. Like founding member of the EEF

Amelia Edwards Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (7 June 1831 – 15 April 1892), also known as Amelia B. Edwards, was an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist. Her literary successes included the ghost story "The Phantom Coach" (1864), the novel ...

he noted with alarm how quickly sites were being destroyed. In the winter of 1882 he discovered the alabaster altar and basins in Niuserre's Sun Temple at Abu Ghurab, a discovery that Edwards believed to be very significant.

1885–1895

He contested

East Cork East Cork lies in south-west Ireland, in Ireland's largest county, County Cork. The term "East Cork" is used in tourism, sporting and other contexts, and is the name given to one of eight municipal districts of Cork County Council. East Cork con ...

at the 1885 election as an Independent candidate but was unsuccessful, losing out to William John Lane of the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish national ...

. Villiers-Stuart was appointed

High Sheriff of County Waterford The High Sheriff of County Waterford was the Sovereign's judicial representative in County Waterford. Initially, an office for a lifetime, assigned by the Sovereign, the High Sheriff became an annual appointment following the Provisions of Oxfor ...

for 1889.

Personal life

Villiers-Stuart married Mary Power, the daughter of Ambrose Power, Archdeacon of Lismore, in 1865. They had five sons and four daughters. He died in October 1895, aged 68, after falling and drowning off Villierstown Quay, near his residence at Dromana, Waterford, having slipped while attempting to enter his boat. His wife survived him by twelve years, dying in September 1907. His youngest son, Patrick Villiers-Stuart, married the author and painter Constance Fielden.

Publication

* ''Eve of the Deluge''. London, 1851. * ''Nile Gleanings''. Concerning the Ethnology, History, and Art of Ancient Egypt,' London, 1879. * ''The Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen''. London, 1882. * ''Egypt after the War''. London, 1883. Being The Narrative of a Tour of Inspection, Including Experiences Among The Natives, With Descriptions of Their Homes And Habits. * ''Adventures amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America''. London, 1891

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Villiers-Stuart, Henry 1827 births 1895 deaths British people of Austrian descent Eldest sons of British hereditary barons Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Waterford constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1868–1874 UK MPs 1880–1885 Henry Stuart Alumni of University College, Durham High Sheriffs of County Waterford

Henry Villiers-Stuart Henry Windsor Villiers-Stuart (13 September 1827 – 12 October 1895), was a British soldier, clergyman, politician, Egyptologist, and author. Parentage He was the son of Henry Villiers-Stuart, 1st and last Baron Stuart de Decies, son of Lord ...

Deaths by drowning British Egyptologists