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Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866)

politician, died 1866

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ5717428 ↗
Source-derived summary

Colonel Henry Arthur Herbert PC (1815 – 26 February 1866), was an Anglo-Irish politician in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Early life

Herbert was the son of Charles John Herbert (1785–1823) and Louisa Anne Herbert (1796–1828, née Middleton), who was the daughter of Nathaniel Middleton.

Herbert's paternal grandfather was Henry Arthur Herbert (1756–1821), MP for Kerry from 1806 to 1813, and his grandmother, Anne, was the daughter of a "Jamaican of colour" named Elizabeth Augier.

He was educated at Eton and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1835.

Career

Herbert was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Kerry from 1847 until his death, and served as Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1857 to 1858. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Kerry in 1853.

In Dublin, Herbert was a member of the Kildare Street Club.

Personal life

Herbert's family owned the Muckross Estate near Killarney in County Kerry. In September 1837, Herbert married the artist Mary Balfour, whom he had met in Rome. The couple moved to Torc Cottage (in the Muckross Estate) after their wedding.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866)” is politician, died 1866. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Henry, Arthur and Herbert, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1815, 1866, 1785, 1823—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1815. For this dossier, Henry, Arthur and Herbert is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “politician, died 1866” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

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 Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5717428. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1815, 1866, 1785 and 1823.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866) primary sources, Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866) archive and Henry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Henry Arthur Herbert (1815–1866)” 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.