Lieutenant Charles Edmund Phipps

A carte-de-visite portrait of Lieutenant Charles Edmund Phipps (1844-1906) of the Scots Fusilier Guards.

Born on 11 June 1844, he was the elder son of the Honourable Sir Charles Beaumont Phipps, Treasurer of the Royal Household. His mother was Margaret Anne Bathurst, daughter of the Bishop of Norwich. His paternal grandfather was Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave.

On 2 April 1853 he was appointed a Page of Honour to her Majesty (Illustrated London News, 9 April 1853). When he joined the Scots Fusilier Guards in 1861, his appointment prompted an irate editorial in the Army and Navy Gazette (22 June 1861): 'There can be no objection that Her Majesty's pages of honour should obtain commissions in the Household Brigade without purchase, but we think it may be reasonably urged that these appointments should not take place until there are vacancies. There is no vacancy now in the Scots Fusilier Guards, and in the instance of Mr Phipps the public will have to pay, for probably a year or eighteen months, for an officer supernumerary to the establishment, and unnecessary to the efficiency of the regiment. [...] We are far from sharing the very inconsiderate and unjust antipathy with which the name of Phipps is regarded by some of the public. We see no reason why Mr Phipps should not get an appointment. But we do think it unreasonable that a place should be created for his behoof, which is admittedly beyond the requirements of the public service.'

On 2 June 1868 he married Susan Stewart Geddes, daughter of the Very Reverend John Gamble Geddes, Dean of Niagara. Their marriage produced eight children.

He and his wife appear on the 1871 census living at Reigate in Surrey. Charles gave as his profession ‘Captain 29th Regiment.'

In 1874 Captain Phipps was appointed one of the 'Gentlemen Ushers Daily Waiters in Ordinary' to her Majesty (Morning Post, 13 June 1874), a position he held for two years. In 1876, by which time he had transferred to the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment, he was appointed a Groom-in-Waiting in Ordinary to her Majesty.

Major Charles Edmund Phipps died on 29 November 1906, at the age of 62.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 18 December 1861.