Miles Stapleton

A carte-de-visite portrait of Miles Stapleton (1850-1896), later Lord Beaumont.

Born on 17 July 1850 at Curzon Street in Mayfair, he was the son of Miles Thomas Stapleton, 8th Lord Beaumont, and his wife the Honourable Isabella Ann née Browne. Following his education at Eton, he joined the Coldstream Guards as a Lieutenant in 1869. In 1879 he transferred to the 20th Hussars with the rank of Captain. In 1884 he was promoted Major and in 1891 he was made a Lieutenant-Colonel. He served in Canada, Bechuanaland and Egypt.

On 23 January 1892 he succeeded his older brother, becoming the 10th Lord Beaumont.

On 7 November 1893 he married Ethel Mary Tempest, daughter of Sir Charles Henry Tempest, at the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary in Cadogan Street, Chelsea.

Lord Beaumont died on 16 September 1895, aged 45, when his gun accidentally discharged when he was crossing a stile.

According to his obituary in The Times (17 September 1895): ‘Lord Beaumont yesterday accidentally shot himself while crossing a stile on his estate at Carlton Towers, Selby, Yorkshire. His body was found with one leg on either side of the stile, the stock of his gun being on the ground. The shot had entered his head under the right eye, and his skull was shattered. He was last seen alive at 11 20, when he said he was going to shoot in an adjoining field before he returned. It appears that he set out shortly after breakfast unaccompanied, for the purpose of ranging the park and home fields. At 12 o’clock the report of a gun was heard, and a farmer going in the direction of the sound found him lying dead. The right barrel of his gun, a hammerless one, was discharged. The body was carried to the Towers, where Lady Beaumont lay ill. The Dowager Lady Beaumont was at once summoned from London.

’Lord Beaumont quite recently resigned his commission in the Army, and last week was present at Southampton to see his old comrades embark for India. He was making extensive improvements in his estate. He succeeded as tenth baron in 1892, on the death of his brother. […] He was a justice of the peace for the West Riding. He married, in 1893, Mary Ethel, only child of Sir Charles Tempest, and leaves one child, the Hon. Mona Josephine Tempest Stapleton, who was born last year.’

Another daughter, the Hon. Ivy Mary Stapleton, was born on 4 October 1895, two weeks after Lord Beaumont's death.

Photographed by Window and Grove of London.