Somerset de Chair

Somerset Struben de Chair (22 August 1911 – 5 January 1995) was an English author, politician and poet. He edited several volumes of the memoirs of Napoleon.

Early and personal life
De Chair was the younger son of Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair, KCB, KCMG, MVO. He first was married on 8 October 1932 to Thelma Grace Arbuthnot (1911–1974), with whom he had two sons: Rodney Somerset and Peter Dudley.

His second wife, Carmen Appleton, gave birth to sons Rory and Somerset Carlo. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1958, allowing Somerset to marry his third wife, Margaret Patricia Manlove (née Field-Hart); they had a daughter, Teresa Loraine Aphrodite (who married Sir Toby Clarke, 6th Baronet).

The third marriage ended in divorce in 1974, and in the same year and at the age of sixty-three, he married his fourth wife, then 39 years old, Lady Juliet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, only child of Peter Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 8th Earl FitzWilliam, who had divorced Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol in 1972. Somerset and Lady Juliet had a daughter, Helena, who married Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The hurdler Lawrence Somerset Clarke is his grandson.

Career
Somerset de Chair was educated at The King's School, Parramatta in New South Wales between 1923 and 1930 before attending Balliol College, Oxford.

He was Conservative MP for South West Norfolk between 1935 and 1945, losing his seat by 53 votes. He was one of the Conservatives who voted against the government in the crucial Norway Debate in May 1940 that brought Winston Churchill into office. He then served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1942–44. De Chair returned to Parliament as MP for Paddington South from 1950 to 1951.

Since he had been a cadet in the Officers' Training Corps at Oxford, De Chair qualified for a commission as a Reserve Second Lieutenant of the Life Guards in 1938. He was mobilised on 24 August 1939, a few days before the United Kingdom's entry into World War II. He served as an intelligence officer with the 4th Cavalry Brigade during the Anglo-Iraqi War and the Syrian Campaign where he was wounded on 21 June 1941. Later service was with the General Staff with the rank of Acting Captain.

Writings
De Chair wrote historical non-fiction, a number of now largely neglected novels, one play, three collections of poetry, and several works of autobiography. He also edited several volumes of the memoirs of Napoleon in English.

Houses and art
De Chair was known for his extravagant taste and lived in a series of large country houses. He lived between 1944 and 1949 at Chilham Castle and leased Blickling Hall from the Marquess of Lothian. He owned St Osyth's Priory in Essex from 1954 until his death in 1995, and also bought Bourne Park in Kent with his last wife, Lady Juliet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam.