Eric Thesiger
Page to Queen Victoria (1874-1961)
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Eric Richard Thesiger DSO, TD (17 February 1874 – 2 October 1961), styled The Honourable from 1878, was a British soldier and page to Queen Victoria.
Background
Born in London on 17 February 1874, Thesiger was the fourth son of General Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford and his wife Adria Fanny Heath, daughter of Major-General John Coussamker Heath. His older brothers were Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, later Viceroy of India, and the diplomat Wilfred Gilbert Thesiger. Thesiger was educated at Winchester College and in 1884 he was nominated Page of Honour to the Queen, a post he fulfilled for the following six years. In 1893, he became a Staff Commissioner of Police.
Career
Thesiger joined the Imperial Yeomanry as a private during the Second Boer War, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 15th Battalion on 29 November 1900. On 1 November 1901 he was promoted to captain in the battalion, with the temporary rank of captain in the Army. He stayed in South Africa until the war ended in June 1902, left Port Elizabeth for Southampton on the SS Colombian the following month, and relinquished his commission in the Imperial Yeomanry on 3 September 1902, when he was granted the honorary rank of captain in the Army. In late 1902 he became a second lieutenant in the Surrey Yeomanry. He was a major when the Yeomanry were transferred into the Territorial Force in 1908.
The public source identifies “Eric Thesiger” as page to Queen Victoria (1874-1961). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eric, Thesiger and Page.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5387620. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1961, 1878 and 1884.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eric Thesiger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.