Hugh Richard Dawnay ⁵⁴

  General Notes:

From The Times, January 22, 1924

Major-General Viscount Downe, soldier and sportsman, the head of a
notable military family, died at his seat, Dingley Hall, Market
Harborough, yesterday, at the age of 79. Last autumn he fell
seriously ill, and early this year his condition became critical.
Hugh Richard Dawnay was the eldest son of the seventh viscount. His
mother, a daughter of Dr. Richard Bagot, Bishop of Bath and Wells, was
very handsome, and her father made it a condition of the marriage that
the bridegroom should build three churches. Born of July 20, 1844, he
succeeded to the Irish Viscounty when he was 12. From Eton he went up
to Christ Church, and joined the 2nd Life Guards in 1865. He served
in the Zulu war of 1879, being mentioned in dispatches, and obtaining
his brevet of major, and was A.D.C. to the Duke of Connaught,
commanding the Meerut Division, from 1883 to 1885. He then commanded
the 10th Hussars from 1887 to 1892, and for the next three years was
A.D.C to the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief. At the Diamond
Jubilee of 1897 he was created a peer of the United Kingdom by the
title of Baron Dawnay of Denby, County York. The fifth viscount had
been created Baron Dawnay of Cowick in the peerage of Great Britain,
but his barony became extinct on his death in 1832. The Viscounty of
Downe is the only case in the peerage of Ireland in which the holder,
having possessed a peerage of England or Great Britain at the time of
the Union, was not in 1890 in possession thereof or of a peerage of
the United Kingdom. From 1897 to 1899 he commanded the Cavalry
Brigade at the Curragh. In the South African war Lord Downe was
A.D.C. to Lord Roberts, and afterwards Inspector of Remounts, being
three times mentioned in dispatches. He retired with the rank of
major-general in 1902, and was made Colonel of the 10th Hussars in
1912.
Lord Downe was elected to the Jockey Club in 1878, and his colours,
chocolate, white hoops, chocolate cap, were carried by a number of
horses on the flat and under National Hunt Rules; but he was never
fortunate enough to own a really good one. He bred the majority of
his runners at his Yorkshire seat, Danby Lodge, and exhibited his
sound judgment by the purchase of Lemitz, a daughter of Bend Or and
Clemence, for though she was of small account as a racehorse, she
became the dam of several useful animals. Her daughter, Red Enamel,
by Arbitrator, won several stakes and was placed for still more;
another, Downey, by Hagiscope, was acquired by the then Prince of
Wales, and her brother, Hagopian, won on several occasions. Downey
proved a very good steeplechaser. She was the property of R.W.B.
Fisher, and had thus belonged to three Colonels of the 10th Hussars.
It should be noted that Lord Downe was full Colonel of that regiment,
a rank which used always to be held by the Prince. Downey did good
service at the stud, and one of her off-spring was the best
two-year-old of her season in Ireland. Fine horseman as he was, Lord
Downe never wore his own colours, even in regimental races; and there
was a period when the Tenth held an annual meeting. He served a term
as Steward of the Jockey Club, and it need hardly be said that his
administration was fearless and decisive. Lord Downe, who had
considerable estates in Yorkshire, where his seat was Danby Lodge,
Grosmont, bought in August, 1883, for about £175, 000, the estate of
Dingley, Market Harborough, of
about 5,000 acres.
The late peer was a member of Lord Northampton's Garter mission in
1881 to invest the King of Spain, and was himself Special Envoy to
invest the Shah of Persia with the Garter in 1903; he was also a
member of Lord Mount Edgcumbe's special mission to annound King
Edward's Accession. Lord Downe was created K.C.V.O in 1903; he had
before that received the C.B. and C.I.E. He married, first, in 1869,
Lady Cecilia Maria Charlotee Molyneux, only daughter of the third Earl
of Sefton; and, secondly, in 1911, Florence Faith, daughter of the
Rev. Henry Dening. By his first marriage he had two sons and three
daughters. His elder son, who succeeds to the title, is
Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. John Dawnay, C.M.G., D.S.O., late 10th
Hussars, who served in the South African War and the European War. He
married Dorothy, only child of Sir William ffolkes, Bt., and has two
sons. The late peer's second son, Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay, D.S.O.,
was killed in action in 1914, to the sorrow of his many friends,
leaving a widow, Lady Susan Dawnay, aunt of Lord Waterford, and four
sons.
The origin of the Dawnays is set forth by Mr. J. H. Round in the first
volume of his "Peerage and Pedigree". There had been an earldom of
Downe and a viscounty of Downe in other families. For the creation of
John Dawnay as Viscount Downe in 1680 Lord Halifax is stated to have
received £25, 000. The Dawnays have furnished a remarkable number of
officers of the Army, and it may be recalled that the third viscount
commanded the 25th of Foot at Minden, and was mortally wounded at the
battle of Campen in the next year.

Hugh married Lady Cecilia Maria Charlotte Molyneux in 1869.

Hugh next married Florence Faith Dening, daughter of Reverend Thomas Henry T. Dening and Florence Cole O'Halloran, in 1911. (Florence Faith Dening was born c 1876 in Bath, Somerset ¹⁰.)