Hammer

£550

Major-General William Arbuthnot (1838-1893) a very large collection of over 300 pieces of correspondence relating to the death of his first wife Alice Charlotte Pitt-Rivers (1842 - 1865) who was tragically killed by lightning during the couple's wedding tour whilst ascending the Schilthorn Alp, near Mürren in Switzerland

The eldest son of Archibald Francis Arbuthnot and the Hon. Gertrude Sophia Gough, William was educated at Eton before he enlisted in the Army Rifle Brigade in 1856, serving during the Indian Mutiny. He married his first wife, the Hon. Alice Charlotte Pitt-Rivers (the fourth daughter of the George Pitt-Rivers, 4th Baron Rivers, and Lady Susan Georgiana Leveson-Gower) on 26 April 1865.

A newspaper clipping included in the collection describes the unfortunate event in vivid detail:

"Tidings of a lamentable and extraordinary incident have come to us from Switzerland, by which names that belonged to the 'fashionable' paragraphs of London Society, pass into the dark and solemn hierarchy of sorrow. One of the 'marriages in high life', which have helped to make the season gay, was celebrated lately between the fourth daughter of Lord Rivers and Mr. Arbuthnot. The bride was young and beautiful, the bridegroom envied and happy; and when they started for a wedding tour on the Continent, the last thought in the mind of those who loved them would have been that their new felicity was to be a thing of days, cut short by a momentary stroke. The travellers had arrived at Interlachen, the well-known and picturesque little Swiss town buried in the Bernese Alps. On Thursday morning they set out on horseback, with a guide, to ascend the Schelthorn, one of the mountain peaks overhanging the village. The weather was fine, the expedition without danger; two fortune-blessed human creatures could not have appeared more secure in their enjoyment of this beautiful and wonderful world, and of those delights which are attached to young affection. They rode about half-way up the mountain till the path was too steep for horses; and then they alighted, walking some distance further. The sky, meanwhile, had become clouded; but the great Alps are always exchanging shadow and sunshine upon their crests, and the guide saw nothing to fear in the gloom that had come over the peak. Presently Mrs Arbuthnot, feeling a little tired, sate down to rest, while her husband and the man proceeded some distance further up the ascent, but never out of sight or hearing of their companion. In a few minutes, however, a furious thunderstorm broke above their heads, and they descended as quickly as possible to the spot where they had left Mrs Arbuthnot. She was still there, but she was dead- a flash of the lightning had struck her, and killed her instantaneously! The bright and happy bride who ascended the mountain so joyously in the morning was carried down in the afternoon a corpse; and, a bitter mockery of the 'mastery' of man over the power of Nature! the young husband, made in one awful moment a widower, had to transmit the news of his misery to the hundred friends at home by that same subtle agency which, from the thunder-cloud, had slain the sweet life of his bride. The electric force that had done the deed, now flashed intelligence of its own work to England"

The letters belonging to William mainly date from the two years spanning 1865-1867, with a large proportion of the 1865 correspondence within the collection comprising of condolence letters, and as such, they have been written on black edged mourning paper. In the Victorian era it was customary for individuals mourning a family member to use mourning paper for the months and even years following the death, the thickness of the black border slowly reducing as the mourning period progressed. The majority of the letters have been written by his mother Gertrude Arbuthnot and father-in-law George Pitt-Rivers, with other senders including his brother Robert Arbuthnot, Henry Pitt-Rivers, Lord Granville George Leveson-Gower, Rev. Francis William Bourdillon and many other notable individuals.

As well as William's green leather-bound passport containing a Safe Passage Request by Earl Russell, Viscount Amberley, one other particularly interesting part of the collection is the correspondence revolving around-and documents pertaining to- the creation of a memorial headstone for Alice to be placed on the mountain. An architect named Henry Hirschgartner of Bern appears to have been responsible for this, and there are numerous letters, invoices and blueprints that detail the extraordinary care and precision with which this task was undertaken. The end result of these meticulous plans can be seen in the included photographs of the erected memorial, as well as the large hand inked blueprint measuring 137x64cm. There are also a quantity of telegrams from the days immediately following the tragedy, including the telegram sent on June 22nd from William to Lord Granville breaking the news of his niece Alice’s death.

Also included within the collection are documents and letters belonging to Alice from before her marriage to William. These items include baptism certificates, poetry and childhood letters sent to and from her mother at Rushmore, and letters addressed to her then-fiancé William. One particularly bittersweet item in the collection is an article printed on silk detailing the wedding from the Dorset Country Chronicle and Somersetshire Gazette of Thursday, April 27th, 1865:

"Loud and hearty were the rejoicings on April 26, 1865, in the neighbourhood of Rushmore Park, for never did a lovelier April morning smile upon a fairer or more joyous scene than that which was witnessed in the union of Alice Charlotte Pitt, fourth daughter of the Right Hon. Lord and Lady Rivers, of Rushmore Lodge, with Capt. William Arbuthnot (14th Hussars), of Hyde Park Gardens, London...we may say they have carried with them the heartiest wishes of all for their lasting happiness and prosperity- a wish in which we cordially and heartily join"

Provenance: From the estate of Major-General William Arbuthnot thence by descent through the family