Somerset de Chair

Somerset Struben de Chair (22 August 1911 – 5 January 1995) was an English author, politician, wartime soldier, and poet. Mostly themed in topical subjects of recent to classical history, he wrote several novels and a greater mass of non-fiction including in which he drew together as editor three works on Napoleon – spanning French-written memoirs to the French Emperor's novel Souper de Beaucaire.

Early and personal life De Chair was the younger son of Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair and Enid Struben, daughter of Henry William Struben, of Transvaal, South Africa. The de Chair family were high Huguenots, descending from René de la Chaire, whose grandson, Jean François, Councillor to Charles IX, was created a Marquis in 1600 by Henry IV. This branch of the family prospered through generations of work in the church and interests in farmland and stud farm land. He married firstly, on 8 October 1932, Thelma Grace (1911–1974), daughter of Harold Dennison Arbuthnot, of Merristwood Hall, Worplesdon, Surrey. They had two sons: Rodney Somerset and Peter Dudley. They divorced in 1950.

Writings De Chair wrote historical non-fiction, a number of now largely neglected novels, one play, three collections of poetry, and several works of autobiography. He also edited two volumes of the memoirs of Napoleon in English.

Houses and art De Chair was known for his extravagant taste and lived in a series of large country houses. He lived between 1944 and 1949 at Chilham Castle in Kent, and leased Blickling Hall in Norfolk, the former home of the Marquess of Lothian, from the National Trust. He owned St Osyth's Priory in Essex from 1954 until his death in 1995, and also bought Bourne Park House in Kent with his last wife, Lady Juliet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam.