Charles Sackville-West, 6th Earl De La Warr
Major-General Charles Richard Sackville-West, 6th Earl De La Warr KCB (13 November 1815 – 23 April 1873), styled Lord West between 1850 and 1869, was a British soldier.
Sackville-West was the second son of George Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La Warr, and Lady Elizabeth Sackville, daughter of John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset. He was the brother of George West, Viscount Cantelupe, Reginald Sackville, 7th Earl De La Warr, Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of Bedford, Mortimer Sackville-West, 1st Baron Sackville, and Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville. He was educated at Harrow.[1]
Sackville-West served in the British Army and was appointed aide-de-camp and military secretary to Sir Hugh Gough in India in 1845. He fought at the Battle of Sobraon in 1846 during the First Anglo-Sikh War. In 1850 he became known by the courtesy title Lord West after the death of his elder brother, Lord Cantelupe.[1] Promoted to major in 1852[2] and to lieutenant-colonel in 1855,[3] he served in the Crimean War.[1] He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1855[4] and an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1856 and awarded the Order of the Medjidie in 1858. In 1864 he was promoted to major-general. He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1869.[1] In 1871 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).[5]
Lord De La Warr died in April 1873, aged 57, by drowning himself in the River Cam.[6] He was unmarried and was succeeded in the earldom by his younger brother, Reginald, Lord Buckhurst.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e thepeerage.com Maj.-Gen. Charles Richard Sackville-West, 6th Earl De La Warr
- ^ "No. 21312". The London Gazette. 23 April 1852.
- ^ "No. 21674". The London Gazette. 9 March 1855.
- ^ "No. 21754". The London Gazette. 31 July 1855.
- ^ "No. 23739". The London Gazette. 20 May 1871.
- ^ Theresa Cornwallis-West, née Whitby, mother of William Cornwallis-West and wife of a grandson of the 2nd Earl De La Warr (thus a first cousin to his grandfather the 4th Earl), erected a memorial to the 6th Earl De La Warr (1815-1873); his death was otherwise not memorialized as he was a suicide. Understandably, speculation remains on the relationship between the unmarried earl and this heiress, wife of a distant kinsman (a first cousin twice removed).