The Right Hon. Si?' Harry Vemey, Bart. 
183 
of midsummer weather, endeavouring to arrange for the mitigation 
of the plague of yellow dust that covered everything as with ochre, 
and of espying Sir Harry Yerney sitting beside the driver in a 
fly full of passengers, that was bringing visitors to the show from the 
railway-station. I seized upon him at once, and endeavoured to save 
him further fatigue by taking him to the Grand Stand in the 
secretarial vehicle ; but I think he resented a little the implied sug- 
gestion that he was not equal to traversing the showyard on foot. 
When the preparations for the first number of the new Quarterly 
Journal were on foot early in 1890, I had several interviews with 
Sir Harry as to a biographical sketch by him of Earl Spencer, the 
first president of the Society. The interesting note which appears 
in Part I. of Vol. I. of the New Series was the subject of numerous 
conferences between Lady Yerney, Sir Harry, and myself, and in 
apologising for a day’s delay in forwarding the manuscript Sir Harry 
(then, it must be remembered, in his 89th year) said : “ I have to 
attend important meetings on all sorts of subjects, and have been for 
some hours this morning in the City, but shall immediately go to 
work on Lord Althorp.” Next day, March 14, he wrote, in sending 
the manuscript : — 
It is utterly unworthy of the dear and honoured man who is the 
subject of it. Old age is a poor claim, but of course the only one that I 
have, to he permitted to write this. Anyone who is allowed to co-operate 
in any manner in the great and beneficent work of the Society ought to 
do it as well as he can. I wish that this was much better. 
Notwithstanding Sir Harry’s modest reference to it, the general 
opinion of the sketch of Earl Spencer was that it was one of the 
most attractive features of the number ; and it was certainly read 
with the greatest possible interest, both on account of the subject of 
it and of the biographer. 
In his Buckinghamshire home Sir Harry set a splendid example 
as a country gentleman living on his estate, interested in county 
business, and solicitous for the welfare of his tenants and of all 
with whom he came in contact. He began life as a soldier — the son 
of a soldier (General Sir Harry Calvert, Bart., G.C.B.), to whose title 
he succeeded in 1826. In 1827 he took the name of Yerney, on 
inheriting the Buckinghamshire and other estates of Mary Yerney, 
Baroness Fermanagh, the last of the original Verneys. Shortly after- 
wards he retired, with the rank of major, from the Grenadier Guards ; 
though, as the Duke of Richmond and Gordon has mentioned (page 
xxxiv.), he retained his interest in his old regiment to the last by 
attending its annual dinners. 
From the first Sir Harry interested himself in all the social ques- 
tions of the day ; and he found an outlet for his activity by becoming 
a member of the first reformed Parliament of 1832. 1 Amongst the 
1 The Verneys were always a very parliamentary family. Sir Ralph 
Verney was Member for London in 1472, and from that time almost up to the 
present there was seldom wanting a representative of the name for the 
county of Bucks or for one of its five boroughs. Sir Harry Vemey carried on 
