Author: Chester, Harry
Biography:
CHESTER, Harry (1806-68: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 1 Oct. 1806 at Ipswich, Suffolk, the third son of Sir Robert Chester of Bush Hall, Herts., Master of Ceremonies to George III, George IV, and William IV, and his wife Eliza Mary Ford, who had married in 1797. He was educated at Charterhouse, Westminster, and Trinity College Cambridge (matric. 1824, Scholar 1825) but did not take a degree. He briefly served in the diplomatic service in Lisbon before 1826 when he was appointed a clerk in the Office of the Privy Council, where he would spend his entire career. He eventually became the Assistant Permanent Secretary to the Privy Council (1840-58) and served on its Committee on Education where he was an ardent advocate for art education and the extension of exams to broaden the qualifications of the middle and labouring classes. He was also a Vice-President of the Society of Arts and served as a Justice of the Peace. At a meeting at the Gate House Tavern in Highgate on 16 Jan. 1839 he was a leading advocate for the formation of an institution to promote literature and science, and the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution was established. He became its first president and served until 1858. He married Anna Maria Isherwood on 2 Sept. 1837 at St. Michael’s, Highgate. They had a son and two daughters. She died in 1854. He then married Henrietta Maria Goff on 24 Mar. 1856 at Nice, France. They had three daughters and a son. He died on 5 Oct. 1858 at 63 Rutland Gate, Westminster, aged sixty-two, and was buried at Highgate cemetery, leaving an estate of under £4000. His wife, Henrietta, survived him and died in 1927, aged 93, at Bishop’s Stortford, Essex, leaving an estate of just under £6000. (ancestry.co.uk 23 Jan. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 23 Jan. 2023; Boase, 1: 604; LES 4 Sept. 1837; Morning Post 29 Dec. 1854, 29 Mar. 1856; OUCH 17 Oct. 1858; GM Jan. 1869, 256; Vera Crane, The Heart of a London Village: The Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution [1991]) AA