Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Percy, Henry Hugh Manvers

1159976Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 44 — Percy, Henry Hugh Manvers1895George Clement Boase

PERCY, Sir HENRY HUGH MANVERS (1817–1877), general, third son of George Percy, fifth duke of Northumberland (d. 1867), by Louisa Harcourt, third daughter of the Honourable James Archibald Stuart-Wortley Mackenzie, was born at Burwood House, Cobham, Surrey, on 22 Aug. 1817, and educated at Eton. He entered the army as an ensign in the grenadier guards on 1 July 1836, and was present during the insurrection in Canada in 1838. As captain and lieutenant-colonel of his regiment he served during the eastern campaign of 1854–5, including the battles of Alma, where he was wounded, Balaclava, Inkerman, where he was again wounded, and the siege of Sebastopol. At the battle of Inkerman, on 5 Nov. 1854, he found himself, with many men of various regiments who had charged too far, nearly surrounded by the Russians, and without ammunition. By his knowledge of the ground, although wounded, he extricated these men, and, passing under a heavy fire from the Russians then in the sandbag battery, brought them safe to where ammunition was to be obtained. He thereby saved about fifty men and enabled them to renew the combat. For this act of bravery he was, on 5 May 1857, rewarded with the Victoria cross. For a short period he held the local rank of brigadier-general in command of the British-Italian legion in the Crimea. From 29 June 1855 to 10 Feb. 1865 he was an aide-de-camp to the queen. On the occurrence of the Trent misunderstanding with the United States in December 1861, he was sent to New Brunswick in command of the first battalion of the grenadier guards. He had been promoted to be major in 1860, and retired from active service on 3 Oct. 1862. As a conservative he sat in parliament for North Northumberland from 19 July 1865 to 11 Nov. 1868. He was rewarded for his military services by his appointment to the colonelcy of the 89th regiment on 28 May 1874, and was made a general on 1 Oct. 1877. On 24 May 1873 he was gazetted a K.C.B. He was found dead in his bed at his residence, 40 Eaton Square, London, on 3 Dec. 1877, and was buried in the Northumberland vault in Westminster Abbey on 7 Dec. He was unmarried.

[Times, 5 Dec. 1877, p. 8; Annual Register, 1877, p. 164; O'Byrne's Victoria Cross, 1880, pp. 31, 79; Dodd's Peerage, 1877, p. 537.]