Captain Seymour, R.N.
(1840-1929)
21 May 1861

Volume 3, page 270, sitting number 3761.

Acquired at the same time as the portrait of Walter Richard Seymour which appears on page 23 of this section, this is probably that sitter's brother, Edward Hobart Seymour, later Admiral the Right Honourable Sir Edward Hobart Seymour. Their parents were the Reverend Richard Seymour, Rector of Kinwarton, and his wife France née Smith. 

Born on 30 April 1840, he fought in the Crimean War between 1854 and 1855 and in the Black Sea. He later fought in the China War between 1857 and 1860, in the African Coast campaign in 1870 and in the Egyptian War in 1881. He was Commander-in-Chief of the China Station between 1897 and 1901 and in 1900 he was commander of the Allied Naval Expedition to Peking. From 1903 to 1904 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Plymouth Station.

From 1887 to 1889 he was a Naval ADC to Queen Victoria and in 1902 he was appointed First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King Edward VII. 

He gained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet and received numerous honours, both domestic and foreign. In 1901 he was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB); in 1902 he was awarded the Order of Merit; and in 1906 he was appointed Knight Grand Cross, Royal Victorian Order (GCVO). He also received the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, as well as honours from Spain, Turkey and Russia. In 1909 he was appointed a Privy Counsellor.

Admiral the Right Honourable Sir Edward Hobart Seymour never married. He died, aged 88, on 2 March 1929 at Maidenhead in Berkshire. He left an estate valued at £54,781.