Casimir Cartwright van Straubenzee

Major-General Sir Casimir Cartwright van Straubenzee KBE CB CMG (11 November 1867 – 28 March 1956), was a British soldier of the Royal Engineers.

Education and career
The son of Colonel Bowen van Straubenzee (1829–1898) of Spennithorne, Yorkshire, and Anne Macaulay Cartwright, daughter of The Hon. John Solomon Cartwright. Educated at Trinity College School, Port Hope and Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, graduating in 1898. He served on the RMC staff 1898-1903.

He played cricket for the Royal Engineers from 1892 to 1908, and one first-class game in 1899 for the MCC. He also played for Canada in 1900. He was the author of  Recollections of Sportsmen and Sport in Days of Yore.

He was Inspector-General of the Royal Artillery from 1917 to 1918 and then served as General Officer Commanding Singapore during World War I. He was commanding officer of the Malaya Command from 1927 to 1931. This command of British Commonwealth forces was formed in the 1920s for the coordination of the defences of Malaya and Singapore.

In 1909 he married Ethel Purcell VanKoughnet (d.1949), whose father, Mathew Robert VanKoughnet (1824–1874) of Toronto, was a first cousin of van Straubenzee's mother. She was a niece of Philip Michael Matthew Scott VanKoughnet. He died 28 March 1956, Lansdown, Bath, Somerset.

Legacy
He was the sitter for two of the portraits in the National Gallery, London.

Straubenzee, the fictional maker of Colonel Sebastian Moran's air-gun in Sherlock Holmes' 'The Adventure of the Empty House', is identified as Major-General Casimir Cartwright Van Straubenzee (1866–1956).

Books

 * 4237 Dr. Adrian Preston & Peter Dennis (Edited) "Swords and Covenants" Rowman And Littlefield, London. Croom Helm. 1976.
 * H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston "To Serve Canada: A History of the Royal Military College of Canada" 1997 Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1969.
 * H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston "Canada's RMC - A History of Royal Military College" Second Edition 1982
 * H16511 Dr. Richard Preston "R.M.C. and Kingston: The effect of imperial and military influences on a Canadian community" 1968
 * H1877 R. Guy C. Smith (editor) "As You Were! Ex-Cadets Remember". In 2 Volumes. Volume I: 1876-1918. Volume II: 1919-1984. Royal Military College. [Kingston]. The R.M.C. Club of Canada. 1984