Hugh Richard Dawnay, 8th Viscount Downe, KCVO, CB, CIE

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Posts : 2308 Join date : 2010-07-02 Age : 44

"Hugh Richard Dawnay (William Henry) was born 20/07/1844.

He married twice. He married Lady Cecilia Maria Charlotte Molyneux 1869. He married Florence Faith Dening 1911. Florence was the daughter of Reverend Henry Dening.

From The Times, January 22, 1924

Major-General Viscount Downe, soldier and sportsman, the head of a notable military family, died at his seat, Dingley Hall, Market Harborough, yesterday, at the age of 79. Last autumn he fell seriously ill, and early this year his condition became critical.

Hugh Richard Dawnay was the eldest son of the seventh viscount. His mother, a daughter of Dr. Richard Bagot, Bishop of Bath and Wells, was very handsome, and her father made it a condition of the marriage that the bridegroom should build three churches. Born of July 20, 1844, he succeeded to the Irish Viscounty when he was 12. From Eton he went up to Christ Church, and joined the 2nd Life Guards in 1865. He served in the Zulu war of 1879, being mentioned in dispatches, and obtaining his brevet of major, and was A.D.C. to the Duke of Connaught, commanding the Meerut Division, from 1883 to 1885. He then commanded the 10th Hussars from 1887 to 1892, and for the next three years was A.D.C to the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief. At the Diamond Jubilee of 1897 he was created a peer of the United Kingdom by the title of Baron Dawnay of Denby, County York. The fifth viscount had been created Baron Dawnay of Cowick in the peerage of Great Britain, but his barony became extinct on his death in 1832. The Viscounty of Downe is the only case in the peerage of Ireland in which the holder, having possessed a peerage of England or Great Britain at the time of the Union, was not in 1890 in possession thereof or of a peerage of the United Kingdom. From 1897 to 1899 he commanded the Cavalry Brigade at the Curragh. In the South African war Lord Downe was A.D.C. to Lord Roberts, and afterwards Inspector of Remounts, being three times mentioned in dispatches. He retired with the rank of major-general in 1902, and was made Colonel of the 10th Hussars in 1912.

Lord Downe was elected to the Jockey Club in 1878, and his colours, chocolate, white hoops, chocolate cap, were carried by a number of horses on the flat and under National Hunt Rules; but he was never fortunate enough to own a really good one. He bred the majority of his runners at his Yorkshire seat, Danby Lodge, and exhibited his sound judgment by the purchase of Lemitz, a daughter of Bend Or and Clemence, for though she was of small account as a racehorse, she became the dam of several useful animals. Her daughter, Red Enamel, by Arbitrator, won several stakes and was placed for still more; another, Downey, by Hagiscope, was acquired by the then Prince of Wales, and her brother, Hagopian, won on several occasions. Downey proved a very good steeplechaser. She was the property of R.W.B. Fisher, and had thus belonged to three Colonels of the 10th Hussars. It should be noted that Lord Downe was full Colonel of that regiment, a rank which used always to be held by the Prince. Downey did good service at the stud, and one of her off-spring was the best two-year-old of her season in Ireland. Fine horseman as he was, Lord Downe never wore his own colours, even in regimental races; and there was a period when the Tenth held an annual meeting. He served a term as Steward of the Jockey Club, and it need hardly be said that his administration was fearless and decisive. Lord Downe, who had considerable estates in Yorkshire, where his seat was Danby Lodge, Grosmont, bought in August, 1883, for about £175, 000, the estate of Dingley, Market Harborough, of about 5,000 acres.

The late peer was a member of Lord Northampton's Garter mission in 1881 to invest the King of Spain, and was himself Special Envoy to invest the Shah of Persia with the Garter in 1903; he was also a member of Lord Mount Edgcumbe's special mission to annound King Edward's Accession. Lord Downe was created K.C.V.O in 1903; he had before that received the C.B. and C.I.E. He married, first, in 1869, Lady Cecilia Maria Charlotee Molyneux, only daughter of the third Earl of Sefton; and, secondly, in 1911, Florence Faith, daughter of the Rev. Henry Dening. By his first marriage he had two sons and three daughters. His elder son, who succeeds to the title, is Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. John Dawnay, C.M.G., D.S.O., late 10th Hussars, who served in the South African War and the European War. He married Dorothy, only child of Sir William ffolkes, Bt., and has two sons. The late peer's second son, Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay, D.S.O., was killed in action in 1914, to the sorrow of his many friends, leaving a widow, Lady Susan Dawnay, aunt of Lord Waterford, and four sons."

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The Dawnay family, 1870's Hugh is the clean-shaven one on the sofa, next to him on the sofa is his brother Guy Cuthbert.
John Young Collection.

John Y.

Posts : 1862 Join date : 2009-03-25

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Lord Downe (seated second) returning from the Boer War on the RMS Dunottar Castle, July 1900.[1] Standing L-R: Sir Byron Leighton, Claud Grenfel, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, Captain Gordon Forbes, Abe Bailey (his son John would marry Diana Churchill in 1932), next two unidentified, John Weston Brooke. Seated L-R: Major Bobby White, Lord Downe, General Sir Henry Edward Colville (a year later Churchill as MP would demand an inquiry over his dismissal from South Africa), Major Harry White, Major Joe Laycock, Winston Churchill, Sir Charles Bentinck. Sitting L-R: unidentified, Col. Maurice Gifford (who had lost his arm in the Second Matabele War).

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Description
Hugh Dawnay, 8th Viscount Downe

Source
Ogden's Cigarette card, circa 1902

Posts : 3362 Join date : 2009-03-03 Location : Devon

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Hugh Richard Dawnay, 8th Viscount Downe

National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sheffield Daily Telegraph 22 January 1924

Posts : 3362 Join date : 2009-03-03 Location : Devon

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Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail 01 February 1924

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Viscount Downe
(John Young Collection.)

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Faith, the Viscountess Downe
(John Young Collection.)

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