merchant, John Watchin, obtained a formal certificate of his death, which he forwarded with his effects to Claydon, where they are still preserved. The rich stuffs of which his clothes are made, his finely enamelled ring, and his staff inlaid with crosses belie the story told by Lithgow that he became a beggar and a renegado.
A portrait (full length in oils), in the style of the Spanish school, is at Claydon House.
[Verney Papers, ed. Bruce (Camd. Soc.), 1853; Verney Memoirs, vol. i.; Gardiner's Hist. of Engl. iii. 65, 67; manuscripts at Claydon House.]
VERNEY, Sir HARRY (1801–1894), second baronet, country gentleman and member of parliament, whose surname was originally Calvert, was son of General Sir Harry Calvert [q. v.], by his wife Caroline (d. 1806), daughter of Thomas Hammersley. Born on 8 Sept. 1801, he was educated at Harrow, and when he was fifteen went on to the military college lately founded at Sandhurst, where he was one of the earliest cadets (1818–19).
He received his commission in the 31st foot, and was sent to Stuttgardt at seventeen as attaché to Sir Brook Taylor's mission, with introductions to the old king's daughters, the queen of Würtemberg and the electress of Hesse Homburg, who entertained him kindly, as did King John of Saxony at Dresden. While abroad he perfected himself in French and German, and studied Italian. On his return in 1820 he joined the 7th fusiliers at Londonderry; served also with the 72nd and 52nd regiments, and then entered the grenadier guards, where he became adjutant; he acted for a time as Sir Herbert Taylor's private secretary at the Horse Guards.
With the zeal to acquire knowledge which distinguished him throughout life, he put himself to school again when he could obtain leave of absence from his military duties. In 1822 he studied with John Marriott (1780–1825) [q. v.], curate in charge of Broadclyst, to whom he became deeply attached; and while in Devonshire he laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship with Sir Thomas Acland and his family.
On the death of his cousin, Mrs. Verney of Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, he assumed the surname of Verney in place of that of Calvert by royal license, dated 23 March 1827. He found himself owner of an estate heavily burdened and long neglected, at a period of agricultural distress and widespread discontent. Giving up his hopes of distinction as a soldier, he prepared to learn the new duties he had assumed with the name of Verney. Before he could settle down, however, as a country squire, his father's old friend, Lord William Cavendish Bentinck [q. v.], was made governor-general of India, and Sir Harry accepted his offer to accompany him as military secretary; but, falling ill on the voyage out, he was left behind at Rio Janeiro, and never rejoined his chief. He recruited his health by hunting with the Indians and riding wild horses on the Pampas; he made a perilous journey across the snow-covered Andes, collected birds and insects, learnt Spanish, and threw himself into the politics and wars of the small South American states, narrowly escaping death while helping to put down an insurrection at Santiago. At one time he took part in resisting some fresh claims of the papacy which an Italian mission had been sent to assert. Years afterwards he was received at the Vatican by the once obscure young priest—by that time pope of Rome—who had been employed in the business, but Pius IX would tolerate no reference to the circumstances of their former meeting. After a year of romantic adventures, extending to Chili, Sir Harry sailed round Cape Horn in the Volage, commanded by (Sir) Michael Seymour (1802–1887) [q. v.], and returned to Claydon in 1829.
Sir Harry proved himself a model landlord. He drained and reclaimed the land, built and repaired cottages, founded schools, planted trees, and, by taking a much more active share in poor-law work and county business than was usual at that time among the country squires, raised the tone of quarter sessions, and helped to give greater regularity and publicity to the proceedings. He knew George Stephenson, made himself personally acquainted with the working of the new system of railroads, and, with more foresight than his neighbours, he welcomed railways on his estate when other landowners were ordering their gamekeepers to warn off the surveyors or to put an end to their operations by force.
When in 1832 cholera broke out among the duck-breeders of Aylesbury and a panic spread through the town, Sir Harry rendered energetic and fearless service to the sick and dying; later in the same year (1832) he was at Paris during a far more terrible outbreak of cholera, and visited the hospitals. After these experiences he worked arduously to collect funds for a county hospital, the establishment of which at Aylesbury he considered one of the happiest events of his life. During a part of these busy years (1831, 1832, and 1833) Sir Harry was studying at the university of Cambridge as
