William Marshall Cazalet

Cazalet was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 8 July 1865.[1] He was the son of Edward Cazalet, merchant and industrialist, and his wife, Elizabeth Sutherland Marshall (d. 1888), daughter and heir of William Marshall, doctor and Danish consul in Edinburgh.[2] Cazalet graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1889. At Oxford, he won a Blue in real tennis (jeu de paume) in 1886, 1887 and 1889, and won the singles in 1889.[1] His father had a real tennis court built for him at Fairlawne, the family home in Shipbourne, Kent.[2]

Cazalet was a "wealthy socialite", with friends including Rudyard Kipling.[1] He served as a Lieutenant in the West Kent Yeomanry Cavalry, was a High Sheriff of Kent, a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Kent.[1]

Cazalet represented Great Britain at the 1908 Olympic Games in jeu de paume.[1][3]

Cazalet was painted by John Singer Sargent in 1902, with his horse and wearing a hunting jacket.[4][5] The painting was sold at Christie's, New York in May 2007, with an estimate of US$2–3 million,[6] and realised $1.832 million.[7] In 2015, Barbra Streisand donated Sargent's 1900–01 group portrait of his wife and two children, Mrs. Cazalet and Children Edward and Victor, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[8]

Mrs. Cazalet with Edward and Victor Cazalet, by John Singer Sargent, 1900–01

He married Maud Lucia Heron-Maxwell (d. 1952), daughter of Sir John Robert Heron Heron-Maxwell, 7th Baronet.[2][9]

Cazalet's eldest son Edward was killed in action in France in 1916. His second son, Victor Cazalet, and his daughter Thelma Cazalet-Keir, both became Members of Parliament, and his third son was the racehorse trainer Peter Cazalet.[1]

Cazalet died on 22 October 1932 in Tonbridge, Kent, England.[1][10]