Major Charles Taylor du Plat

A carte-de-visite portrait of Major-General Charles Taylor du Plat (1822-1900), who served in the Royal Engineers and was for many years an Equerry to Queen Victoria. He died in 1900 at the age of 78.

According to his obituary in the Times (Monday 5 November 1900): ‘The death is announced of Major-General Sir Charles Taylor Du Plat, K.C.B. It occurred on Friday last at his residence, Ashley, Winchfield, Hants. Sir Charles Du Plat was the son of Brigadier-General G.C.G. Du Plat, R.E., a Knight of Hanover, and Pauline, Countess Hardenberg. He was born in 1822, and was, therefore, 78 years of age. Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he entered the Royal Artillery as long ago as 1841 and served in that corps for just on 40 years, retiring on full pay in 1880 with the rank of Major-General. Since 1854 – that is to say, for a period of about 46 years – Sir Charles Du Plat had been closely associated with the court. In that year he was appointed Equerry to the Prince Consort, and he acted in that capacity until the death of his Royal Highness in 1861. From that time onwards he attended the Queen as Equerry-in-Ordinary until 1893, when he became an Extra-Equerry, an office which he still held at the time of his death. He held the first-class of the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle and the Grand Cross of the Ducal Saxon Order of Albrecht. Sir Charles Du Plat married twice – first, in 1855, to Maria, daughter of Sir William C. C. Dalyell, seventh baronet, who died in 1867, and, secondly, in 1897, to Ann Bennett, elder daughter of Mr. J. S. Forbes. The Court Circular of last night contains an expression of the Queen’s regret at the General’s death.’

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 12 October 1860.