Regency Men: Captain Gronow

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RE EES HOWELL GRONOW whom Creevey referred to as the member of Parliament and the duellist was as a member of society of far more importance in his own than in anybody else's eyes Born in 1794 and educated at Eton where he was intimate with Shelley at the age of eighteen he became an ensign in the first regiment of Foot Guards and early in 1813 he went on active service to Spain In the following year he returned with his battalion to England and at once set up as a dandy Fortunate in securing the entrée to Almack's at a time when as he has related only a few of the three hundred officers in the Guards obtained that privilege he was one of the first to dance the quadrille and the waltz in this country 1 Rees Howell Gronow 1794 1865 2 Lord William Pitt Lennox 1799 1881 A soldier to the backbone so soon as he heard of Napoleon's escape from Elba he deter mined without waiting to secure the permission of the military authorities to join the English army in Brussels The sole obstacle was that he had no ready money but this he would not allow to interfere with his project He borrowed all he could two hundred pounds from his agents Messrs Cox & Greenwood and this sum being insufficient for his needs he deter mined to treble it or lose it He repaired to a St James's Square gambling den and won six hun dred pounds Hastily purchasing horses and other requisites he crossed the Channel persuaded General Picton to take him on his staff and was in time to be present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo and to enter Paris with the allied troops days later he was promoted to a captaincy in his regiment with which he remained for six years when he retired from the army Bankrupt in 1823 he was in a position to contest Grimsby at the election of 1831 probably owing to the fortune he inherited from his father William Gronow of Court Herbert Glamorganshire His experiences in this direction were unfortunate he was elected for Stafford in the first Re formed Parliament but unseated for bribery and Three standing again three years later was defeated by Mr FL Holyoake Goodriche In later years he resided in Paris He married in 1825 Antoinine Didier of the Opera and after her death Mdlle de Saint Pol by whom he had four children The time of Gronow's greatest glory was per haps after Waterloo and until his departure for Paris where he was present during the coup d état For some years he occupied the house where Brummell had resided until 1810 No 4 Chester field Street Mayfair and he moved in the best society accepted as a dandy not only by Brummell but also by Lord Alvanley Always well dressed of course his popularity among women may perhaps be accounted for by his exceptional good looks According to one account however Count D Orsay thought little of him and made fun of him on account of his small stature Although a magnificent pistol shot the best in England it was said with the exception of Captain Ross Gronow was a good natured man and he showed no resentment when D Orsay inverting two letters of his patronymic called him No grow in overt allusion to his size nor when after admiring one of the Count's waistcoats and saying Oh my dear Count you really must
give me that wonderful waistcoat the tall French dandy replied Wiz pleesure Nogrow but w at s all you do wiz im and then added with a smile Ah e s all make you one dressing gown 1 I have lived long enough to have lost all my dearest and best friends Gronow lamented some years before his death which took place at Paris on November 20 1865 The great laws of hu manity have left me on a high and dry elevation from which I am doomed to look over a sort of Necropolis whence it is my delight to call forth certain choice spirits of the past His method of calling forth these choice spirits was to write his reminiscences 2 which are concerned with English and French society and are very valuable al though now and then a story may have been told at second hand as showing the dandies of the day in their habit as they lived Melville, L. (1908). The Beaux of the Regency; Volume 1. United States: Creative Media Partners, LLC.

In his later years, he resided in Paris and worked on four volumes of his memoir, which were published in the mid 1800s and have helped sustain his name among the history books.  He would be remembered as a handsome, flawlessly dressed, popular gentleman who was also a crack shot who was first married to an opera dancer and then a Breton aristocrat who he eventually left penniless following his death in 1865 at the age of 70.

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2 Responses to Regency Men: Captain Gronow

  1. Nancy Mayer says:
    April 28, 2024 at 11:55 am

    His book is interesting and full of lively stories. However, it also contains errors. The most outstanding of these is his list of the patronesses of Almacks in 1814. The summation of his life is different from what I had seem before, especially the bts about Almacks..