Sir Henry Frederick Ponsonby GCB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 (10 December 1825 – 21 November 1895) was a British soldier and royal court official who served as Queen Victoria's Private Secretary.

Biography

He was the son of the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 general, Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby

Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby

Major General The Honourable Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, GCMG, KCB, KCH , styled The Honourable from 1806 to 1837, was a British military officer, the second son of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough and Henrietta Spencer....

.

Ponsonby rose to the rank of Colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 in the Grenadier Guards

Grenadier Guards

The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. It is not, however, the most senior regiment of the Army, this position being attributed to the Life Guards...

 and fought in the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. On 30 April 1861, he married Hon. Mary Elizabeth Bulteel, a daughter of John Crocker Bulteel MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 and they had five children:

• Alberta Victoria Ponsonby (d. 15 October 1945)
• Magdalen Ponsonby (d. 1 July 1934)
• John Ponsonby (25 March 1866–26 March 1952)
• Frederick Edward Grey Ponsonby
  Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby
  Frederick Edward Grey Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby GCB GCVO PC , was a British soldier and courtier.Ponsonby was the second son of General Sir Henry Ponsonby and his wife the Hon. Mary Elizabeth...
  
   (16 September 1867–20 October 1935)
• Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby
  Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede
  Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede was a British politician, writer, and social activist. He was the third son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, and the great-grandson of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough...
  
   (16 February 1871–24 March 1946)

Ponsonby embellished letters to his children at Eton with a series of illustrations in which he concealed the school's address. It was a family quirk continued by his son, Arthur Ponsonby, and recently revived by descendant Harriet Russell. His letters bore addresses appearing as doodled signposts in snowstorms or as huge envelopes shouldered by tiny people.

He served as Keeper of the Privy Purse

Keeper of the Privy Purse

The Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to the King/Queen is responsible for the financial management of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom....

 and Private Secretary to Queen Victoria.

His son Arthur wrote a biography of him which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

 in 1942: Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's Private Secretary: His Life and Letters.

In Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Brown is a 1997 British drama film starring Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher and Gerard Butler...

, he was portrayed by Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms such as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.-Career:...

 whose close friend and frequent co-star, Dame Judi Dench

Judi Dench

Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...

 played Queen Victoria.