Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kingscote, Henry Robert
KINGSCOTE, HENRY ROBERT (1802–1882), philanthropist, was born on 25 May 1802. He was second son of Thomas Kingscote (d. 1811), who was brother of Robert Kingscote of Kingscote, Gloucestershire; his mother was Harriet, fourth daughter of Sir Henry Peyton of Dodington in the same county. He was educated at Harrow, and early became a cricketer and rider to hounds. He was six feet five inches in height. He played his first match at Lord's on 21 May 1823. In 1827 he was elected president of the Marylebone Cricket Club. A narrow escape from drowning turned his attention to religious matters; he became a friend of Bishop Blomfield, and with him was instrumental in founding the Church of England Scripture Readers' Association and the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association, of which he was a trustee all his life. In 1846 he published a pamphlet-letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the needs of the church, which ran through several editions, and in it he urged the extension of lay agency and the foundation of new bishoprics. In 1846 he helped to found the Southwark fund for schools and churches, and in 1847 he helped in alleviating the distress in Ireland. He sent out supplies to the troops during the Crimean war. In 1868 Kingscote was one of the founders of the British and Colonial Emigration Society; he was also the founder of the scheme for establishing workshops for the indigent blind, which was not very successful, and of the National Orphan Asylum at Ham Common. Kingscote died on 13 July 1882. He married, on 11 July 1833, Harriet Elizabeth Tower of Weald Hall, Essex, and by her had three sons and five daughters.
[Times, 14 July 1882; Lillywhite's Cricket Scores and Biographies, i. 468; Box's English Game of Cricket, p. 101; Nimrod's Hunting Tour, p. 198; Men of the Reign; Burke's Landed Gentry.]