Lt. Gen. Philip Spencer-Stanhope
(1799-1881)
27 June 1861

Volume 4, page 143, sitting number 4644.   

Born in or about 1799 at Cawthorne in Yorkshire, Philip Spencer-Stanhope was the son of Walter Stanhope of Horseforth and Cannon Hall, who in 1776 had assumed the addition surname of Spencer. His mother was Mary Winifred, daughter and heir of Thomas Babington Pulleine of Carlton Hall. Philip joined the Army as an Ensign on 30 March 1815. On 17 July 1823 he became a Lieutenant and Captain in the Grenadier Guards. Although he eventually attained the rank of General, he saw no active service in a theatre of war.

Having avoided the matrimonial state for most of his life, on 2 May 1865 at Holy Trinity Church in Marylebone he married Mary Catherine Strickland, widow of Edward Rowland Strickland and daughter of Jonathan Harrison. However, his wife died, aged 45, only two months later. She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery on 26 July 1865.

He appears on the 1871 census, a widower living at 70 Harley Street in London with five servants, including a butler and a footman.

General Spencer-Stanhope, a ‘General in Her Majesty’s Army and Colonel of the 13th Prince Albert’s Light Infantry Regiment,’ died, aged 81, on 21 February 1880 at his home, 70 Harley Street, London. He left an estate valued initially at £60,000 but subsequently resworn at £50,000. He was buried in All Saints’ Churchyard at Cawthorne in Yorkshire.

According to a brief obituary in the Pall Mall Gazette (24 February 1880): ‘General Stanhope had been nearly sixty-five years in the army, having obtained his first commission in March, 1815, but had seen no war service. He became a colonel in 1846, a major-general in 1854, a lieutenant-general in 1861, colonel of the 13th Light Infantry in 1864, and general in 1868.’

Under the heading ‘A colonel who never smelt powder,’ the Glasgow Evening Citizen (25 February 1880) reported that ‘The death of General Philip Spencer Stanhope places a valuable piece of patronage in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief – the colonelcy of the 13th Regiment of Foot. The deceased General had by some extraordinary “misfortune” never seen active service, although he was in the Guards when the battle of Waterloo was fought.’