Walter Richard Seymour
(1838-1922)
4 April 1861

 

Volume 3, page 44, sitting number 2874.

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Walter R. Seymour,' this is probably Walter Richard Seymour. Born on 9 December 1838 at Kinwarton in Warwickshire, he was the son of the Reverend Richard Seymour, Rector of Kinwarton, and his wife Frances née Smith. 

Walter appears on the 1861 census, living with his parents at the Rectory in Kinwarton. He gave his profession as 'Clerk in the Admiralty Office, London' and his place of birth as Kinwarton.

On 19 August 1886, under the heading 'An Unlucky Career,' the Liverpool Mercury reported on a recent bankruptcy. 'At the London Bankruptcy-court, yesterday, a meeting was held before Mr Chapman, assistant receiver, of the creditors of Walter Richard Seymour, described as a member of the St James's Club, Pall Mall. [...] From the examination of the debtor it appears that from 1862 to 1866 he was a clerk in the House of Commons, and afterwards went to the Argentine Republic cattle and sheep farming. He returned in 1870, and from 1871 to 1872 he was an inspector of factories at Birmingham. He left that and went to Paraguay to arrange matters in connection with a Paraguayan loan and emigration from England, but, in consequence of a misunderstanding, he became involved in £20,000 liability for the support of emigrants sent out unprovided for. The liabilities were eventually cleared off. He then joined a firm of gunmakers at the West-end of London, but left the business and became engaged in the purchase of a gold mine and the floating of copper mines in Portugal. Since 1882 he has been engaged in floating the Torenzo and Marquess Transvaal Railway, South Africa, for which he obtained the concession, but without success. His debts are returned at £1,259 7s. 1d., and no assets. There was no offer, and, adjudication of bankruptcy having been made, the case was left with the offical receiver to wind up.'

Having avoided the matrimonial state for most of his life, he finally took the plunge in his twilight years. On 20 October 1913 he married Hilda Mary Grant, daughter of Charles James Irwin Grant, 6th Baron de Longueil. 

Walter Richard Seymour died, aged 83, on 16 March 1922 at 9 Ovington Square, Knightsbridge. He left an estate valued at £132.