If you walk along Pont Street you may have noticed this house opposite St Columba’s Church. Both were built in 1884 but the church was destroyed by a bomb in 1941 and rebuilt in 1955. No 67, known as Farm House, was commissioned by Major General Sir Herbert Stewart KCB but he never lived there. Now No. 67 is home to Knightsbridge School.
If General Stewart looks rather young he is. He died in 1885 aged only forty-one of wounds received on the expedition to relieve Gordon’s garrison at Khartoum. Distinguished enough to merit this bronze memorial in St Paul’s but he has another memorial (fountain) in Hans Place facing Pont Street.
There is a poignant inscription along the base of the memorial:
Also of his son Geoffrey Stewart, Coldstream Guards, killed in action in France, December 22nd 1914 aged 36.
Now for something different. Two friends suggested these items as “stocking fillers”.
I have clipped my miniature compass to my Oyster card case, my friend has his on his watch strap.
Heffer might pop him in among the late Victorians but he strikes me as being a mid-Victorian with the brio and brains to put himself into a field marshals uniform come the Second Boer War. Pity we will never know.
On a lighter note or two …he certainly was in the great mustaches of HM Forces sweepstakes circa 1880. Also would he have been happy with rachety Ecudorian embassy a few doors down? I’d reckon not.