Bilston's HistoryCoat of ArmsLinksMore HistoryPoemsPuzzlesWeather

Bilstononline logo
Click above to Go Back to Front Page
 
C.H.Bury
Colonel Charles
Howard Bury   

The Life and Times
of
Colonel Charles Howard Bury (1881-1963)

 Lord Curzon
Lord Curzon
Viceroy of India
6 January 1899 
 18 November 1905   

Colonel Charles Howard-Bury was elected as the Conservative MP for Bilston at the 1922 General Election, narrowly beating celebrated union man and Labour stalwart John Baker in a surprise victory.

The Colonel would hold on to his Bilston seat in the surprise election of 1923, before being ousted by a vengeful Baker the following year, defeating Howard-Bury with the support of renowned electoral agent and spin doctor Sam Hague.

Here local historian and PhD researcher, Greig Campbell, explores the life of the good Colonel . . .

During his short-time as MP for Bilston the Colonel involved himself in both local and national affairs – being assigned as the Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for War, Edward Stanley – the 17th Earl of Derby. Perhaps his most telling contributions to Parliament were those concerning international affairs, making statements on debates surrounding Indian and Irish nationalism, as well as the persecution of religious minorities in Russia.

The Colonel’s fascination with foreign diplomacy is perhaps unsurprising. Born in London in 1881, he was the only child of Captain Kenneth Howard and Lady Emily Bury, wealthy socialites and part-time explorers whom had met during a botanical expedition in Algeria. Upon the death of his father in 1884,

Howard-Bury was adopted by Lord Lansdowne, the then Viceroy of India, and was brought up in the Dolomites of Austrian Tyrol – where he developed a passion for climbing, hill-walking, photography and botany.

After graduating from Sandhurst in 1905 with the rank of Captain, Charles became the first ‘Westerner’ to enter the forbidden land of Tibet – reading the works of the Krishnamuriti and meeting the Dhalai Lama.

The following year he embarked on a pilgrimage along the River Ganges, receiving teaching from Sanskrit scholars and killing a man-eating tiger that had carried off and eaten 21 ‘fakirs’ or holy men.

Over the next decade Howard-Bury would become one of the few ‘Westerners’ to traverse Siberia, the great foothills of Central Asia and the Tien Shan Mountain range, which divides modern-day Kyrgystan and China – becoming fluent in 27 local dialects along the way.

Map 
A map showing Tian Shan Mountains today

In 1915 he returned to Europe to re-join his regiment - the King’s Rifles – rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he led his battalion with distinction at Arras, the Somme and Passchendaele.
After being mentioned in dispatches on numerous occasions and receiving the DSO, the Colonel was taken prisoner at Ypres – being one of the last of the troops to be released in May 1919.

So what links this socialite, celebrated explorer and war hero to the infamous legend of the Abominable Snowman - and how did he end up in a small industrial steel-town in the Black Country?

Continued