Harry de Windt

Captain Harry Willes Darell de Windt FRGS^[1] (9 April 1856, Paris – 30 November 1933, Bournemouth) was the aide-de-camp to his brother-in-law Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (Harry's sister Margaret was Brooke's wife), and is best known as an explorer and travel writer.^[2] His books were published under the name of Harry de Windt.

Harry de Windt pictured in his From Paris to New York by Land

Harry de Windt was the son of Captain Joseph Clayton Jennyns de Windt, of Blunsdon Hall,^[3] between Swindon and Highworth in Wiltshire, England. He was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1875, but did not take a degree, travelling with his brother-in-law from 1876 to 1878.^[4]

His first wife was Frances Laura Arabella Long, sister to the 1st Viscount Long of Wraxall, whom he married in London in 1882. They were divorced in 1888. There was one child from this union, a daughter, Margaret Maude. Harry married Hilda Frances E Clark, daughter of the Rev Professor William Robinson Clark, in 1899; she died in 1924. In 1927, Harry married the actress Charlotte Elizabeth Ihle, better known by her stage name, Elaine Inescourt.

Works

• On the equator (1882)
• From Pekin to Calais by land (1889)
• A ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan (1891)
• Through the gold-fields of Alaska to Bering Straits (1898)^[5]
• True tales of travel and adventure. Chatto. 1899.
• From Paris to New York by land (1903), 1904 2nd printing
• Through Savage Europe; Being the Narrative of a Journey (undertaken as Special Correspondent of the Westminster Gazette), throughout the Balkan States and European Russia; With one hundred illustrations. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1907. Retrieved 21 March 2019 – via Internet Archive.
• Moles and their Meaning. London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. 1907.
• My note-book at home and abroad. E. P. Dutton and co. 1923.

References

1. "Election of Fellows". Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. New Series. 12: 356. 1890.
2. "DE WINDT, Harry". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 481.
3. "Sunday blazing Sunday brings down Blunsdon Abbey, recalls Barry Leighton". Swindon Advertiser. 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2023-09-15.
4. "De Windt, Harry Willes Darrell (D875HW)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
5. "Review of Through the Gold-Fields of Alaska to Bering Straits". The Athenæum (3675): 435–436. April 2, 1898.

External links

• Media related to Harry de Windt at Wikimedia Commons
• Harry de Windt biographical information.
• Works by Harry De Windt at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Harry de Windt at the Internet Archive