Capt Henry Harvey

Adapted from Miller, D. (2001). The Black Bottle Affair and its Family Background. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Autumn 2001, Vol. 79, No. 319 (Autumn 2001), pp. 209-218.

Henry Harvey (1783-1853) was descended from a family which had been established in the Bridgwater area of Somerset, although his father, Robert, had moved to Holt in Wiltshire, from where he ran a medical practice nearby Bath. Henry went up to Cambridge, but left after a year to join the Army in 1802. He was still in India in 1817 when he received news of his father's death. As the heir, he needed to return to England to sort out his family's affairs, and he obtained passage in HMS Lyra, which fortuitously had just called at Madras on its voyage home from escorting Lord Amherst's embassy to the Emperor of China.

During the passage, Harvey became firm friends with its agreeable captain, then a lieutenant, who was to achieve considerable literary fame from the 1820s onwards as Captain Basil Hall, RN. The high point of their voyage was a visit St Helena, where Basil Hall managed to obtain an audience with the erstwhile Emperor Napoleon, taking Harvey with him, and on their return to England the two men remained friends for the rest of their lives.

Basil had a favourite sister, Magdalene Hall (1794-1822), who underwent several tragic experiences. Her first husband was Colonel Sir William Howe De Lancey, who served on Wellington's staff as Assistant Quartermaster-General throughout the Peninsular campaign. In late 1814, De Lancey was posted to Scotland, where he met Magdalene and, after a whirlwind romance, they were married in April 1815. They were on their honeymoon when news arrived of Napoleon's escape from Elba and De Lancey was recalled to duty, obliging him to report at once to the Duke of Wellington in Brussels to serve as his Quartermaster-General. Magdalene followed her husband to Brussels, but the fighting started soon afterwards and De Lancey was seriously wounded at Waterloo. Magdalene found him in a peasant's cottage, nursed him until his death ten days later and subsequently wrote a very moving account of these experiences, now known to military historians as 'Lady De Lancey's Narrative'. The second misfortune was when, in 1817, Magdalene nursed her favourite sister, Helen, for several months until she died of consumption. Basil sought to cheer his sister, and in late 1818 he introduced her to his erstwhile shipmate, Henry Harvey. The two fell deeply in love and were married in March 1819. They had a son, Robert (1820-8), and two daughters, Helen (1820-87) and Katherine (1822- 81) before Magdalene died, also of consumption, in 1822.

At the time of his first marriage, Harvey's financial situation could be termed no more than 'comfortable', but in 1824 he had a most remarkable piece fortune, inheriting the St Audrie's estate in north Somerset from a very distant relative, Miss Christiana Balch. This made him a wealthy man for the rest life. Following Magdalene's death, Henry remarried twice, his second wife being Agnes Ramsay, by whom he had two daughters, and his third wife being Emily Duncan Stewart. Henry Harvey had no need to work for a living, having substantial wealth from the Somerset estate (which he sold in 1832), his Indian investments and pension, and his inheritance from Magdalene. He had homes in London and Brighton and moved in 'society', being a founder member (with his friend and brother-in-law, Basil Hall) of the Athenaeum Club in 1824 and a member of the Carlton Club.