The Honourable Reginald Capel
(1830-1906)
1 February 1861

Volume 2, page 180, sitting number 2010. 

The Honourable Reginald Algernon Capel was born on 3 October 1830, the second son of the sixth Earl of Essex. His mother was Caroline Janette, daughter of the eighth Earl of St Albans. He was baptised at St George’s Hanover Square on 23 October 1830. 

On 23 July 1880 his father legally changed the spelling of his surname to Capell by Royal Licence. His elder son adopted the change but his younger son apparently did not, although some official records do spell his surname with only one L. 

On 24 August 1858 he married Mary Eliza Fazakerley, daughter of John Nicholas Fazakerley. 

The Honourable Reginald Algernon Capel died, age 75, on 31 July 1906, at 26 Connaught Square, Bayswater. 

‘We much regret to record the death of the Hon. Reginald Algernon Capel, which took place at his residence, 26 Connaught-square, London, on the 31st July. Mr Capel was born on October 3rd, 1830 and was therefore in his 76th year. […] Having lived for a great part of his life at Little Cassiiobury, and identified himself with so much that concerned the affairs of Watford, he was a well-known figure in the town and neighbourhood, and exercised considerable influence. […] At the beginning of the Volunteer movement, Mr Capel established the Watford Volunteer Corps, of which he was the commanding officer for many years. During the Franco-German war he, with Mrs Capel, was a zealous worker with the Red Cross Brigade (Watford Observer, 4 August 1906; the obituary goes on to list his achievements and interests at some length). 

‘Just a year after his resignation of office as deputy-chairman of the Great Northern Railway, which had had held for eight years, the Hon. Reginald Algernon Capel has passed away. He had been on the Board of directors of that line for thirty years, besides which he had filled the chair of the East Lincolnshire Railway and the Land and House Property Corporation, and was a trustee of the Mercantile Investment and General Trust Company’ (Financial News, 2 August 1906). 

He left an estate valued at £58,583.