Richard William Howard Vyse

General Sir Richard Vyse
Born	July 25, 1784(1784-07-25) Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, England
Died	June 8, 1853(1853-06-08) (aged 68) Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Rank	Major-General
Awards	KCMG
Other work	High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire anthropologist and Egyptologist

Major-General Sir Richard William Howard Vyse, KCMG (25 July 1784 – 8 June 1853) was a British soldier, anthropologist and Egyptologist. He was also Member of Parliament for Beverley (from 1807 to 1812) and Honiton (from 1812 to 1818).

Family life

Born Richard William Vyse on 25 July 1784 at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, was the only son of General Richard Vyse and his wife, Anne, the only surviving daughter and heiress of Field-marshal Sir George Howard. Richard William Vyse, assumed the additional name of Howard by royal sign manual dated 14 September 1812, on inheriting the estates of Boughton and Pitsford in Northamptonshire through his maternal grandmother, Lucy, daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1672–1739).

Vyse was knighted, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, year unknown, though late in his life. Vyse died at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, on 8 June 1853. He married, 13 Nov, 1810 Frances, second daughter of Henry Hesketh of Newton, Cheshire. By her he had eight sons and two daughters. His will was proved on 13 August 1853 at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

Military career

Howard Vyse was commissioned as cornet into the 1st Dragoons in 1800. He transferred to the 15th Light Dragoons as a Lieutenant in 1801 and was promoted Captain in 1802 and Major in 1813. In 1815 he transferred to the 87th Foot and in 1816 to the 2nd Life Guards, and then also to the 1st West India in 1819. He was promoted brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in 1825, later nominated to rank put onto half-pay in 1825, Colonel in 1837, and Major-General in 1846.

In 1809 he acted as aide-de-camp to his father on the staff of the Yorkshire district, and on 5 July 1810 received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University. On 2 October 1840, Vyse undertook an official duty as the Colonel of the Life Guards in the mourning party for HRH Princess Sophia-Augusta.

Parliamentary career

Vyse was returned to parliament for Beverley on 8 May 1807. In October 1812 he exchanged this seat for Honiton in Devonshire, which he retained till the dissolution of 1818. He served as High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1830.

Egyptologist

At Giza he and John Shae Perring worked with gunpowder forcing their way into several monuments, including the burial chamber of the pyramid of Menkaure.

Vyse's gunpowder archaeology made one highly notable discovery in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Giovanni Battista Caviglia had blasted on the south side of the stress-relieving chamber (Davison's chamber) on top of the King's chamber, a chamber discovered by Nathaniel Davison in 1765, hoping to find a link to the southern air channel. But while Caviglia gave up, Vyse suspected that there was another chamber on top of Davison's chamber, since he could thrust a yard long reed though a crack up into a cavity. He therefore blasted straight up on the northern side, over three and a half months, finding four additional chambers.

Vyse named these chambers after important friends and colleagues; Wellington's chamber (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington), Nelson's chamber (Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson), Lady Arbuthnot's chamber (Anne Fitzgerald, wife of Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 2nd Baronet) and Campbell's chamber (Patrick Campbell, the British agent and Consul General in Egypt).

Just as amazing as the chambers were Vyse's discovery of numerous graffiti in the chambers, in red paint, dating from the time the pyramids were built. Along with lines, markers and directional notations were work gangs names, including cartouches of several pharaohs, concentrated in Lady Arbuthnot's and Nelson's chamber, but all four chambers contained graffiti. The previously discovered Davison's chamber contained no graffiti.

The now famous single instance of Pharaoh Khufu's name, compounded in a work gang inscription is found on the south ceiling towards the west end of Campbell's chamber. Today this chamber also contains a fair amount of 19th and 20th century graffiti. The other similar famous "Khnum-Khuf", also part of work gang graffiti, is found in Lady Arbuthnot's chamber. Several other compound cartouches can be found in this chamber.

Publications

• Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837, published London, 4to., two volumes, 1840.
• Appendix to Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 published London, 4to., 1842, volume three, 1842. Devoted to Perring's researches. Full text at Google Books.

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Vyse, Richard William Howard". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 

External references

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Richard Vyse
• Archival material relating to Richard William Howard Vyse listed at the UK National Register of Archives
• Howard-Vyse Manuscripts at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Richard Vyse John Wharton	Member of Parliament for Beverley 1807–1812 With: John Wharton	Succeeded by Charles Forbes John Wharton
Preceded by Sir Charles Hamilton Augustus Cavendish-Bradshaw	Member of Parliament for Honiton 1812–1818 With: George Abercrombie Robinson	Succeeded by Samuel Crawley Peregrine Francis Cust
Honorary titles
Preceded by	High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire 1824	Succeeded by James Du Pré
Honorary titles
Preceded by Robert Harvey	High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire 1830	Succeeded by Henry Andrewes Uthwatt