Henry Arthur Herbert, Coldstream Guards
(1840-1901)
6 October 1860

Volume 2, page 25, sitting 1400. 

Henry Arthur Herbert was the eldest son of the Right Honourable Henry Arthur Herbert of Muckross, Kilarney, and his wife, the water-colourist Mary Balfour Herbert. Born in or about 1840, he entered the Coldstream Guards in 1857 as an Ensign / Lieutenant, by purchase from Sir William Forbes, Bart. According to Hart’s Army List (1863), he was promoted to Lieutenant / Captain on 9 November 1862.

The regiment is ranked second in the order of precedence, behind the Grenadier Guards, the Grenadier Guards having served the Crown for longer. However, the Coldstream Guards is an older regiment, having been formed by Colonel Monck as part of the New Model Army. The regiment is always referred to as the Coldstream, never as the Coldstreams, likewise a member of the regiment is referred to as a Coldstreamer.

A brief announcement of his death appeared in the Times on Monday 19 August 1901, according to which Henry Arthur Herbert died ‘on the 14th inst. at Thornborough House, Watford, after a few days’ illness [...], aged 61’.

According to a short obituary in the Morning Post (19 August 1901), 'He was lately major in the Lordon Irish Rifles Volunteers, and had formerly been captain in the Coldstream Guards. Mr Herbert sat as a Liberal for the Kerry Division from 1866 to 1880.'

According to the Irish Times (21 August 1901), he was 'born at the Balfour seat, Whittinghame, Prestonkirk, and, serving first in the Royal Navy, and then for a few years in the Coldstream Guards, in 1866 succeeded to his estates, with the famous ruin of Muckross Abbey.' Elsewhere, the same report refers to his estate as 'one of the most beautiful demeanes in Ireland.'