Felix Bedingfeld

A carte-de-visite portrait of Felix Bedingfeld (1808-1884), Barrister and Colonial Secretary in Mauritius from 1860 to 1868.

Born in 1808, Felix William George Richard Bedingfeld was the fourth son of Sir Richard and Lady Charlotte Bedingfeld of Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk.

In 1836 he received £1024 compensation from the British government for the 'loss' in Montserrat of 61 slaves that he was forced to liberate following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.

On 30 April !849 he married Mary Woodward Chads. Born in the West Indies in or about 1818, she was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Chads, formerly of the 1st West India Regiment, who subsequently (1852-1854) served as the President of the Council in the British Virgin Islands.

He and his wife Mary appear on the 1881 census living at 58 High Street ('Pilgrim House'), Lymington in Hampshire. For his profession, Felix described himself as 'Superannuated barrister, Civil Service.'

Felix Bedingfeld died, aged 76, at Pilgrim House in Lymington on 7 December 1884. He left an estate valued at £8476.

According to his obituary in the Law Magazine and Legal Review: 'Mr Bedingfeld, who was called to the Bar in 1849, had held high office in the Colonies. He was Private Secretary to the Governor of the Leeward Islands, 1834-45, Crown Commissioner, Turks Islands, 1842, Master of the Superior Court, Trinidad, 1849-54, and lastly, Colonial Secretary and Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Mauritius, 1860-68. In 1869 he was nominated a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. Mr Bedingfeld was the fourth and only surviving son of Sir Richard Bedingfeld, of Oxburgh, fifth Baronet (cr. 1661), and was uncle of the present Sir Henry Paston Bedingfeld, seventh Baronet.'

Photographed by Chambay and Lecorgne of Mauritius.