Charles Harbord, 6th Baron Suffield

Lt. Col Charles Harbord, 6th Baron Suffield, CB, MVO (14 June 1855 – 10 February 1924), was a British Army officer and British Conservative politician.

Suffield was the eldest son of Charles Harbord, 5th Baron Suffield, and his first wife Cecilia Annetta, daughter of Henry Baring, third son of Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet. He schooled at Eton and entered the Scots Fusilier Guards as an Ensign on 30 April 1873 and was promoted Lieutenant in April 1875.

Harbord was appointed second in command of the 2nd Scots Guards in December 1899 and then served in the Second Boer War, arriving with his regiment in May 1900. He took command of the 1st Scots Guards in July 1901 and was to bring them home at the war’s end, leaving Cape Town on the SS Winifredian in September 1902.^[1] He was mentioned in despatches in 1901 and retired from the army in 1904.

He served as a Groom-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria from 1895 to 1901. In 1914 Suffield succeeded his father in the barony and took his seat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords. The following year he was appointed Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard (Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Lords) in the coalition government of H. H. Asquith, a post he held until 1918, the last two years under the premiership of David Lloyd George.

Lord Suffield married Evelyn Louisa, daughter of Captain Eustace John Wilson-Patten (eldest son of John Wilson-Patten, 1st Baron Winmarleigh), in 1896. He died in February 1924, aged 68, and was succeeded by his eldest son Victor. Lady Suffield died in 1951.

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Military profile at www.angloboerwar.com