Lieut. Alexander Charles H. Stewart
(1838-1917)

Volume 1, page 161, sitting number 848.

[The sitter is identified as ‘M. Stewart, Life Guards’ in the Silvy daybooks, with the ‘M’ Standing for ‘Monsieur’ rather than for his first name. He appears in Hart’s Army List for 1860 as Alexander Charles H. Stewart, a Lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards.]

Born in Ireland on 15 November 1838, Alexander Charles Hector Stewart was the eldest son of John Vandeleur Stewart of Rock Hill, County Donegal. His mother was Lady Helen née Graham-Toler, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Norbury. 

He joined the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards as a Cornet (by purchase) on 14 October 1856. By 1860 he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant. He eventually commanded the regiment. 

On 25 April 1872, now a Lieutenant-Colonel, he married Gertrude Mary Smith, daughter of Eric Carrington Smith, a banker. The marriage produced one daughter, born in 1875 at 90 Sloane Street, London. 

He appears on the 1901 census, a retired Major-General living at 23 Lennox Gardens, London, with his wife Gertrude and their daughter Kathleen, aged 26. Also present on the night of the census were six servants, including a butler and a footman. 

Major-General Alexander Charles Hector Stewart died on 7 March 1917 at 23 Lennox Gardens, London. He was ‘late Colonel Commanding 2nd Life Guards, aged 79, eldest son of the late John Vandeleur and Lady Helen Stewart, of Rockhill, county Donegal’ (Londonderry Sentinel, 10 March 1917). 

He left an estate valued at £48,039.