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9 unusual facts about Sidney Herbert


Crimean War Memorial

In 1914, it was pulled down and moved to make room for the statues of Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert who was Secretary at War during the Crimean War.

Herbert Park

The land used for the park was given to the city by the 14th Earl of Pembroke whose family name was Herbert.

Herbert Sound

On January 6, 1843 Captain James Clark Ross discovered a broad embayment east of the sound, which he named "Sidney Herbert Bay" after Sidney Herbert, First Secretary to the Admiralty.

Inflatable boat

The Admiralty was sceptical about potential uses for Halkett's designs; on 8 May 1845 Lord Herbert, First Secretary to the Admiralty wrote to Halkett that "My Lords are of an opinion that your invention is extremely clever and ingenious, and that it might be useful in Exploring and Surveying Expeditions, but they do not consider that it would be made applicable for general purposes in the Naval Service".

Iron armour

British efforts at perfecting iron armour were headed by a government Special Committee on Iron, formed in 1861 by War Secretary Lord Herbert for the continued research into naval armour.

Mount Merrion

Mount Merrion was occupied for a time by Lord Herbert of Lea, and later by Sir Neville Wilkinson, from 1903 to 1914.

Sidney Herbert, 16th Earl of Pembroke

He was Comptroller and Private Secretary to the Duchess of Kent, 1942–1948, as well as Equerry to the Duke of Kent.

St Mary's Church, Wilton

In 1845 a new Church of England parish church of St Mary and St Nicholas was built at the instigation of the Countess of Pembroke and her younger son Baron Herbert of Lea, designed by the architect Thomas Henry Wyatt and D. Brandon in the Italianate Romanesque style, with considerable Byzantine influences.

Thomas Graham Balfour

In 1857 he was appointed secretary to Sidney Herbert's committee on the sanitary state of the army, and in 1859 he became deputy inspector-general in charge of the new statistical branch of the army medical department, a post which he held for fourteen years.


Henry Herbert, 17th Earl of Pembroke

Herbert was the only son of the 16th Earl of Pembroke and 13th Earl of Montgomery and his wife, Mary (a daughter of the 1st Marquess of Linlithgow) and a godson of Prince George, Duke of Kent.


see also