Henry Byng, 4th Earl of Strafford

The Right Honourable The Earl of Strafford KCVO CB
"Byngo" Byng as caricatured in Vanity Fair, May 1892
Equerry
In office 1874–1899
Preceded by	The Lord de Ros
Succeeded by	John Brocklehurst
Groom-in-Waiting
In office 1872–1874
Preceded by	Henry Gardiner
Succeeded by	John Campbell
Personal details
Born	Henry William John Byng 21 August 1831 London, England
Died	16 May 1899 (aged 67) Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England
Military service
Service/branch	British Army
Rank	Supernumerary Major
Unit	Coldstream Guards

Henry William John Byng, 4th Earl of Strafford KCVO CB (21 August 1831 – 16 May 1899) was a British peer and courtier.

Biography

Byng was the second son of George Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford and his first wife, Agnes. From 1840 he was a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria and joined the Coldstream Guards in 1847 as a Lieutenant. In 1854, he was promoted to Captain, by purchase, appointed an Adjutant later that year and a Supernumerary Major in 1865.

In 1872, Byng was made a Groom-in-Waiting and then an Equerry two years later. In 1895, he was appointed a CB and a KCVO in 1897. In 1898, he inherited his elder brother's titles.

Byng was killed in an accident at Potters Bar railway station when he was hit by an express train. He appeared from witnesses to step in front of the train from the bottom of the slope at the end of the platform, he was carried for 50 yards.^[1] The coroner's court investigated his medical conditions where he was prone to catalepsy, they also considered suicide, the jury returned a verdict that the death was due to misadventure.^[1]

As his sons predeceased him^{[lower-alpha 1]}the titles passed to his brother, Francis.

Family

On 15 October 1863, Byng married Countess Henrietta Louisa Elizabeth Danneskiold-Samsøe (a maternal granddaughter of the 1st Marquess of Ailesbury) and they had four children:

• Hon. George Albert Edward Alexander (1867–1893)
• Hon. John George Thomas Wentworth (1870–1894)
• Lady Mary Elizabeth Agnes (d. 1946), married Count Maurice de Mauny Talvande.
• Lady Amy Frederica Alice (1865–1961), married Sidney Agar, 4th Earl of Normanton.

After his wife's death in 1880, Byng married on 6 December 1898 Cora Colgate née Smith (a wealthy American widow), but they did not have any children.

Byng had been buried in a family vault in the churchyard of St John's Potter's Bar with his first wife, the church had become disused and prone to vandalism so the bodies were exhumed in 1935 and moved to a mauseleum at the nearby family estate of Wrotham Park.^[2]

Notes

1. Eldest son George was drowned at sea in 1893 between Naples and Gibraltar from the RMS Ophir, second son John died the following year aged 23 in Paris of typhoid.

References

1. "The Death of Lord Strafford". The Times (35833). London. 19 May 1899. p. 8.
2. "Exhumation of Earl and Wife". Dundee Courier. 9 August 1935. p. 5.