Mrs Chetwynds Chair

Ref: HLMP2/032

Mrs Chetwynd’s Chair is the name given to a seat hewn out of the Rock on the west side of the Rock close to the Governor’s Cottage. The seat offers huge panoramas over the straits and breath-taking views towards Ceuta.

The chair was dedicated to the work of a Major Douglas who had been appointed temporary Fort and Town Major in Toulon before he was killed during the siege of that place in the year 1793. According to an article in a contemporary edition of the Gentleman’s Magazine, Major Douglas 'had an elegant taste for poetry, which the verses he has written upon several occurrences at Gibraltar are sufficient evidence.’ Among the best of them are some complementary lines on the Hon. Mrs Chetwynd, and also on Prince Edward’s Chair, ‘which is placed upon the Levant Road, lately excavated out of the Rock of Gibraltar under his direction¹ It is very possible the date 1793 was inscribed above the seat in commemoration of Major Douglas’s death – the poem appears to have been inscribed on the cave wall and dated December 1790.

The identity of Mrs Chetwynd has been uncertain and a popular theory - proposed at great length by local historian George Palao - was that she was a certain Amy Lyon, who later changed her name to Emma Hart and who eventually became the mistress of Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador to Naples. Sir William then married her whereupon she subsequently achieved immortality by becoming Lady Emma Hamilton, Nelson’s favourite mistress.This theory is not supported by any factual context.

Her identity had, in fact, already been known since 1884, after the Rev R. Stewart Patterson - Chaplain to H.M. Forces in Gibraltar during the late nineteenth century – had written an article on the names of the streets of Gibraltar in a publication called Notes and Queries a Medium for Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. In that same article, Rev Patterson had asked the readers of Notes and Queries the following question:²

Near the guard house, on Mediterranean Road, there is a recess hollowed out of the rock containing a stone seat. At the back of this seat is a carefully carved tablet, which has unfortunately been much mutilated, the following words and letters only remaining: -

“Mrs. Chetwynds S

When Phoebus

Of his lost d

This grot s

Of one it

…. Mor

And cha

Does anyone know who Mrs. Chetwynd was, or can anyone supply the missing words of the inscription?

R. Stewart Patterson

Chaplain H.M. Forces

Gibraltar

Original entry in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1881.

An answer to his appeal was returned through the same medium:

Gibraltar Queries (6^th S. iii. 7). – “Mrs. Chetwynd S” is Mrs. Chetwynd Stapylton, wife of Major-General Granville Anson Chetwynd, who assumed the name Stapylton. See the title of Viscount Chetwynd.

EBORACUM

The Chetwynd Stapyltons

Granville Anson Chetwynd had been born on the 25^th September 1758, his father was William Chetwynd, 4^th Viscount Chetwynd. On the 29^th July 1783 he married Martha Stapylton⁴ and later added her surname to his. Granville Anson Chetwynd death is recorded as the 2^nd December 1834.

Neville Chipulina’s suggestion that she had been born in 1769 and thus ‘a young lady in her early twenties when the chair was built’ appears improbable as this would mean that she would have been fourteen years old at the time she had married Granville. Another genealogy source, however, states that Martha was born in Wighill, Yorkshire in 1766, the only daughter of Henry Stapylton of Wighill Yorkshire, England. She married Granville at St. Michael-le-Belfry in York on the 29^th July 1783.⁵ This would suggest that she was seventeen years old when she married and aged 56 when she passed away in 1822. She was buried in Hadley in Middlesex.⁶

We can trace Granville’s distinguished military career from his obituary posted in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1835 which recorded that:⁷

Major-General Granville Anson Chetwynd had been appointed Ensign in the 2^nd Foot in 1773, and subsequently Lieutenant and Captain in the same Corps. In 1794, he attained the brevet of Major; and was afterwards appointed to a company of the 38^th Foot. He served on board the Channel Fleet under Lord Howe, and in Ireland during the rebellion. In 1807, he was removed from the 38^th Foot to the 6^th Foot; obtained the brevet of Lieut. Colonel 1808, of Colonel 1814, and of Major-General 1825. He had the command as Colonel of the York Fencibles and the 15^th Garrison Battalion; and was for some time Assistant Adjutant-general in England, and also Paymaster and Inspector of Marines. In 1817 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Victualling Board. He was also a Groom to the Bedchamber of the Duke of Kent.

It is known from genealogical records that during the period 1791-1797 the family was residing in Beckenham, Kent where Ester, Margaret, Diana and Augusta were all born. Granville William, meanwhile, was born in Wighill House, Wighill, Yorkshire in 1800 which indicates the family remained in the UK during the last decade of the 18^th Century. The marriage produced eight descendants in total:

Harriet Honora Chetwynd-Stapylton (1784-1867)

Henry Richard Chetwynd-Stapylton (1789-1859)

Ester Susannah Chetwynd-Stapylton (1791-1839)

Margaret Chetwynd-Stapylton (1793-1865)

Diana Clarissa Chetwynd-Stapylton (1795-1825)

Augusta Chetwynd-Stapylton (1797- )

Granville William Chetwynd-Stapylton (1800-1840)

Charlotte Chetwynd-Stapylton

Of the two sons, the following information can be traced:

Henry Richard Chetwynd-Stapylton served as a Major in the 10^th Hussars and later became a fund holder.

Granville William Chetwynd Stapylton (1800-1840), was a surveyor and explorer according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography⁸ was engaged in surveying the coast south from Brisbane. On the 31^st May 1840, Aborigines attacked his camp and Stapylton and an assistant, William Tuck, were killed, and another member of the party severely injured. Tuck's body was buried on the spot but Stapylton's was taken to Brisbane.⁹

During the period that the family resided in Kent and Yorkshire Granville was posted to Ireland where he took part in the first major conflict of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

A commemorative plaque on the site of the battle reads:

The Battle of Saintfield. On 9 June 1798, along this road and in the adjoining fields, was fought the Battle of Saintfield. The United Irishmen, represented by a strong body of country people, defeated a military force under Colonel Granville Stapylton of the York Fencibles. The insurgents, including Rev Thomas Leslie Birch, Presbyterian Minister of Saintfield, were left in possession of the town and surrounding area before moving on to Ballynahinch, and the defeat of the rebels in Down on 13 June 1798.

Battle of Saintfield plaque, County Down.

The Gibraltar Connection

The 2^nd Regiment of Foot arrived in Gibraltar in November 1783 to relieve the garrison after the end of the siege and remained in Gibraltar until 1792 when as a result of the the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, detachments of the 2^nd Foot were either sent to the West Indies or acted as marines in the Channel Fleet where they served on Howe's flagship, Queen Charlotte and also on board Russell, Defence, Royal George and Majestic. Captain Chetwynd Stapylton is known to have served aboard Howe’s Fleet from 1793 onwards before being redeployed to Ireland of 1798.

We are therefore left with a nine-year window where it is known the Chetwynd’s resided in Gibraltar which corresponds with the date ascribed to the poem – December 1790 – and the date 1793 above the niche. Major Douglas appears to have been the same Officer after whom both Douglas Path and Douglas Cave were named after and who had been directing the excavation works along the Levant Road during this same period.

Captains’ Douglas and Chetwynd therefore served as garrison Officers together throughout this period and it is probably during the construction of the present Mediterranean Road that the niche, seat and poem dedicated to Mrs. Chetwynd was inscribed. It is not too difficult to imagine the scene, a young Mrs. Chetwynd frequently accompanying the two Officers as they directed the construction of tunnels and paths in the area of the Levant. By this time, Mrs. Chetwynd would have had two children Harriet Honora had Henry Richard, both born in Gibraltar, and this folly was built especially for her to give her shade from the fierce summer sun or strong levanter winds prevalent in the area. Such was their friendship that Captain Douglas dedicated one of his poems to this lady which was subsequently etched on the wall inside the specially made niche.

1793 Mrs Chetwyn's Chair inscription.

The gallant death of Captain William Douglas

What is known of Captain William Douglas was that this Officer served in the 11^th Regiment of Foot. He was promoted to Captain (probably through purchase as was customary at the time) on the 26^th April 1783.¹⁰ His Regiment arrived in Gibraltar in November 1783 where it remained until the winter of 1792 before returning to England at the beginning of January 1793. Before returning to England, the 11^th Regiment was redeployed as Marines and took part in the ill-fated Siege of Toulon.

There, on the 30^th August, some 600 British and Spanish soldiers were ordered to assail an adverse Revolutionary French force of 800 men who had taken possession of the small village of Ollomilles. After a number of small skirmishes around the flanks, Captain Elphinstone ordered Captain Moncrief of the 11^th Regiment to lead the attacking column, under cover of the stone enclosures to within 200 yards of the bridge; and as the shades of evening were gathering over the scene, the British soldiers rushed upon their numerous opponents, with an energy and determination which overpowered all opposition; the enemy’s formidable positions were forced in gallant style, and their routed troops fled, leaving the artillery and two stands of colours in possession of the victorious soldiers of the ELEVENTH and TWENTY-FIFTH Regiments and the Spaniards. This success was acquired at the expense of many valuable lives, and the loss of Captain Douglas of the ELEVENTH Regiment, a very brave and meritorious soldier, was much regretted.¹¹ Captain Douglas was the only British dead in that encounter, one sergeant and 6 privates were recorded as wounded.¹²

Captain Elphinstone would later state in his despatch: ¹³

‘The column behaved with a degree of intrepidity worthy of imitation; but the credit of the day was chiefly derived from the great exertions and gallant behaviour of Captain Douglas, town-major, and it is with grief that I dad, he was mortally wounded, and is since dead.’

The cause of his death, as described in his obituary, as ‘a ball entering his breast, that was extracted at the shoulder blade.’¹⁴

Despite being known for his taste for poetry it does not appear he ever published his works. The few lines inscribed above Mrs. Chetwynd’s Chair is all that is left of his literary works.