Author: HORT, Richard
Biography:
HORT, Richard (1802-57: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the second of two children and the only son born to Thomas Hort (d 1806) and his wife Ann Hall who had married at St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, on 24 Sept. 1799. He was born, probably at 9 Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square in London, on 19 Oct. 1803 and baptised at St. Marylebone on 18 Nov. He became a sub-lieutenant “by purchase” in the Life Guards on 26 Jan. 1819 and progressed steadily through the ranks. He was a captain in the 8th Hussars by 1825 and moved to the 81st Regiment in 1828. Hort eloped to Gretna Green with Barbara Massie McGregor (b 1806), the daughter of an army colonel, and they were married there on 6 Sept. 1826. They married again on 30 Sept. at St. Marylebone; they had two sons, Robert (b 1827) and Richard (b 1830). He was appointed aide de camp to Sir Hussey Vivian in Ireland in 1834 and he took up the post at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin. His Kilmainham Pensioner's Lament and a farce, Love a la Militaire, date from this period and both were published by W. F. Wakeman in Dublin. In 1838 he was promoted to major and in 1840 he was made acting Colonial Secretary in Barbados; he later became Deputy Adjutant in Dominica. His wife Barbara died of fever there on 16 Aug. 1841; her will left her entire estate, including her inheritance from her father, to her husband. After his return to England Hort married Matilda Frances Nicolson (b 1826) at St. Helier, Jersey, on 19 Apr. 1849. He retired from the army at the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The 1851 Census shows the couple living with three servants in Greenwich and he died there in 1857. Hort was buried at Nunhead Cemetery, Southwark, on 21 May 1857. His other works include The Beauty of the Rhine, a Metrical Romance (1836), The Rock; Illustrated with Various Legends and Original Songs, and Music, Descriptive of Gibraltar (1839), The Man who Eloped with his own Wife (1850), The Embroidered Banner, and Other Marvels (1850), The Horse Guards (1850), Penelope Wedgebone, the Supposed Heiress (1850), and The Guards and the Line (1851). For a few months in 1851 Hort edited The British Soldier: a Journal. (ancestry.co.uk 7 Apr. 2025; findmypast.co.uk 7 Apr. 2025; Limerick Chronicle 6 Sept. 1826; Waterford Mail 15 Jan. 1834; Boase) SR