Henry Brassey

For his son, see Henry Brassey, 1st Baron Brassey of Apethorpe.

Henry Arthur Brassey (14 July 1840 – 13 May 1891), DL, of Preston Hall, Aylesford, Kent and of Bath House, Piccadilly, London,^[2] was a British Member of Parliament.

Arms of Brassey: Per fess indented sable and argent, in the first quarter a mallard of the second ^[1]

Origins

He was the second son of the railway magnate Thomas Brassey (1805–1870) by his wife Maria Harrison, a daughter of Thomas Harrison of Liverpool. His elder brother was Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey, and his younger brother was Albert Brassey, a Member of Parliament for Banbury.

Career

He was educated at Oxford University, and in 1868 was elected as Member of Parliament for Sandwich in Kent, as a Liberal, a seat he held until 1885. Brassey served as a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent, as High Sheriff of Kent in 1890 and as a Justice of the Peace for that county.^[3]

Marriage and children

In 1866 Brassey married Anna Harriet Stevenson (d.1898), a daughter of Major George Robert Stevenson of Tongswood, Hawkhurst, Kent, by whom he had five sons and seven daughters, including:

• Henry Brassey, 1st Baron Brassey of Apethorpe, second but eldest surviving son and heir, a Conservative politician who was raised to the peerage in 1938;
• Harold Ernest Brassey, soldier and polo champion;
• Hilda Brassey (Duchess of Richmond), wife of Charles Gordon-Lennox, 8th Duke of Richmond.

Death

Brassey died in May 1891, aged 50.^[4]