Gleichen, H S H (Count)

fl.1868

1891

Prince Victor Ferdinand Franz Eugene Gustaf Adolf Constantin Friedrich of Hohenlohe-Langenburg married the daughter of an English admiral in 1861. Because of an old German law disqualifying his wife from using his first title, he assumed the name of his second title, Count Gleichen. In fact, Gleichen’s mother was half-sister to Queen Victoria. Gleichen had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, fighting in the Baltic, in the Crimean War and in China, where he was recommended for the Victoria Cross. Illness obliged him to retire at the age of 33, in 1866, and it was then that he took up modelling and sculpture. A material setback following the collapse of a bank caused him to practice sculpture as a serious profession. Queen Victoria granted him a suite of apartments in St James’s Palace, where he worked successfully, and later he built himself a house at Ascot on the proceeds. In 1887 he was promoted to the rank of admiral, on the retired list.