Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley, 12th Baronet

Sir Richard Henry Williams-Bulkeley, 12th Baronet KCB VD JP (4 December 1862 – 7 July 1942) was a British sailor, yachting enthusiast and public official.

Early life

Williams-Bulkeley was born on 4 December 1862. He was the son of heiress Mary Emily Baring and Capt. Sir Richard Llewellyn Mostyn Williams-Bulkeley, 11th Baronet, of the Royal Horse Guards. In 1864, his father divorced his mother after alleging she committed adultery with Lt.-Col. Henry Armitage of the Coldstream Guards. He then married Margaret Elizabeth Peers Williams (a daughter of Lt.-Col. Thomas Peers Williams), in 1866. His mother married Lt. John Oakley Maund (a son of William Herbert Maund) in 1867. From his father's second marriage, he had a younger half-sister, Bridget Henrietta Frances Williams-Bulkeley (who married Benjamin Seymour Guinness and was the mother of Gp. Capt. Loel Guinness and Meraud Guinness). His maternal grandparents were Maj. Henry Bingham Baring and Lady Augusta Brudenell (a daughter of Robert Brudenell, 6th Earl of Cardigan). Among his first cousins were Sir Godfrey Baring, 1st Baronet. and his lands in Wales included "Snowdon, the loftiest mountain in Wales and England, whose principal peak, Y-Wyddfa, rises 3,560 feet above the sea, and Beaumaris Castle, a historic pile on the Isle of Anglesey, North Wales." In 1921, it was reported that Snowdon was for sale and in 1926, it was announced that he had presented Beaumaris Castle to the British nation." Some of the castle's stones may have been reused in 1829 to build the nearby Beaumaris Gaol. In 1925, Williams-Bulkeley retained the freehold and placed the Beaumaris Castle into the care of the Commissioners of Works, who then carried out a large scale restoration programme.

Yachting

A member of the Royal Yacht Squadron for 58 years, he was the first Royal Naval Reserve officer to be appointed Commodore of the Squadron in 1927.

Personal life On 10 December 1885, Williams-Bulkeley was married to Lady Magdalen Yorke (1865–1940), a daughter of Charles Yorke, 5th Earl of Hardwicke and Lady Sophia Wellesley (a daughter of Henry Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley). Together, they were the parents of:

Major Richard Gerard Wellesley Williams-Bulkeley (1887–1918), who married Victoria "Vita" Alexandrina Stella Legge, daughter of Hon. Sir Henry Charles Legge, in 1909. He died in March 1918 from wounds received in action in World War I. Generis Alma Windham Williams-Bulkeley (1889–1946), who married Sir Harry Mainwaring, 5th Baronet in 1913. Æira Helen Williams-Bulkeley (1891–1964), who married John Chadwick, son of T. S. Chadwick, in 1921. who married Capt. Vivian Francis Bulkeley-Johnson, son of Francis Head Bulkeley-Johnson, in 1924. They divorced in 1947 and he married the American heiress, and fellow divorcee, Cornelia Stuyvesant Cecil ( Vanderbilt). As his only son predeceased him, he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his grandson, Lt.-Col. Richard Harry David Williams-Bulkeley (1911–1992).