General Sir Edward Bowater, only son of Admiral Edward Bowater of Hampton Court Palace, was born at St. James’s palace, London, on 13 July 1787. Educated at Harrow, he became an Ensign in 3rd Foot on 31 March 1804; from 12 October 1826 to 10 January 1837 he held the rank of Major. He served in the Peninsular War and was a veteran of Waterloo. From 1831 to 1837 he was an equerry to King William IV, and from 1840 to 1846, an equerry to Prince Albert. On 3 March 1846 he was created a groom in waiting in ordinary to the Queen. He was Colonel of the 49th Foot from 24 April 1846 until his death.

Sir Edward Bowater died on 14 December 1861 at Cannes in the South of France, where he had been sent in charge of Prince Leopold. By a strange coincidence, this was the same day on which Prince Albert died at Windsor.

All the portraits on this and the preceding page are from the album of Gertrude Frances Vesey of Long Ditton [Surrey]. Born the daughter of George and Harriet Vesey in 1842 (christened at Long Ditton on 4 July 1842), she was 18 years old when she began to compile the album. She lived at home with her parents for many years, until on 23 November 1876, at the age of 34, she became the second wife of the 58-year-old Reverend John William Hawtrey (1818-1891). She appears on the 1881 census living at St. Michael’s School, Langley Marish [Bucks.], where her husband was the headmaster “without the cure of souls”. The couple had a three-year-old daughter called Gabrielle and a nine-month-old son called Guy.