Duke of Beaufort

Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, was born in Paris on 1 February 1824. He died at Stoke Gifford on 30 April 1899.

On the 8 July 1845, he married Lady Georgina Curzon-Howe (29 September 1825 –14 May 1906) at Hampton.

A 'gentleman carriage driver' and a noted sportsman, in the 1880s the Duke wrote a series of 23 books on various sporting interests. He was also a patron of homeopathy.

Photographed by H.C. Booth of Harrogate in Yorkshire.

Born in the village of Tong near Bradford in Yorkshire, Hiram Crompton Booth was the son of John and Sarah Booth. At the time of the 1861 census he was a 'Photographic Artist' in Harrogate. When the next census was taken ten years later he gave his profession as 'Picture Dealer and Photographer.' The following year he was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to three months with hard labour. He had, it transpired, entered into a partnership with a Mr Isaac Greenbury to buy and sell paintings and furniture. Using Greenbury's money, he had purchased a number of items totalling a value of £1200 but instead of selling them in the agreed manner at the agreed time and place, he had sold them already and pocketed the proceeds. In April 1873 he was once again in court, this time on a charge of libel, but on this occasion he was acquitted. The courts were much troubled by Hiram Booth that year. In September 1873 he appeared on a charge of assault and in October 1873 he was fined for allowing his dogs to worry sheep. In 1881 he was living back in Harrogate, now carrying on business as a 'Dealer in Works of Art.' He died, aged 65, in 1890.