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Ponsonby was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 11 February 1888, and promoted to lieutenant on 2 July 1892. He was promoted to captain on 15 February 1899, and served with the 3rd Battalion of his regiment in the Second Boer War. Wounded at the end of the war, he returned to the United Kingdom in April 1902.[1] He was later promoted to Major and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, and served in the First World War. He wrote the standard history: The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914-1918. 3 vols. Published in 1920.
Lord Sysonby married Victoria Lily, daughter of Colonel Edmund Hegan Kennard, on 17 May 1899, Lady Sysonby, the well-known cook book author. They had three children:
Victor Alexander Henry Desmond Ponsonby (19 June 1900 – 24 November 1900)
Lord Sysonby died in London in October 1935, aged 68, only four months after his elevation to the peerage, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.[3] He was succeeded in the barony by his surviving son Edward. Lady Sysonby died in 1955.
His autobiography Recollections of Three Reigns is full, frank and entertaining. Nancy Mitford wrote to Evelyn Waugh that there was "a shriek on every page".[4][5]
The Ponsonby family
The Ponsonby family has played a leading role in British life for two centuries. His father was the Sir Henry Ponsonby - memorably played by Geoffrey Palmer in the film 'Mrs. Brown' - who was Private Secretary to Queen Victoria. His grandfather was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, but survived to become General Sir Frederick Ponsonby. Lady Caroline, better known to history under her married name of Lady Caroline Lamb, was the wife of the future Prime MinisterLord Melbourne and lover of the poet Lord Byron. This lady was also a key figure in a film - played by Sarah Miles - in 1972. The father of the two siblings, Frederick's great-grandfather, was the 3rd Earl of Bessborough. The man wounded at Waterloo is not to be confused with another Ponsonby depicted on film, his kinsman General Sir William Ponsonby, whose death - possibly due to not risking his best horse in battle - at the hands of a group of lancers is an incident noted in the film 'Waterloo'. Frederick's daughter, Loelia, married the 2nd Duke of Westminster, before remarrying, after the Second World War, to become the alliterative Lady Loelia Lindsay.
Notes
^"The War - Invalids and others returning home". The Times. No. 36755. London. 30 April 1902. p. 10. template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help)
