Henry Byng, 4th Earl of Strafford

Byng was the second son of George Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford and his first wife, Agnes. From 1840 he was a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria and joined the Coldstream Guards in 1847 as a Lieutenant. In 1854, he was promoted to Captain, by purchase, appointed an Adjutant later that year and a Supernumerary Major in 1865.

In 1872, Byng was made a Groom-in-Waiting and then an Equerry two years later. In 1895, he was appointed a CB and knighted KCVO in 1897. In 1898, he inherited his elder brother's titles.

Byng was killed by an express train at Potters Bar railway station. Witnesses said he appeared to step in front of the approaching engine from the bottom of the slope at the end of the platform. His body was carried 50 yards down the track.[1] A coroner's court was later told he had the nervous condition of catalepsy. The inquest jury – after considering several verdicts including suicide – returned a finding of death by misadventure.[1]

As his sons predeceased him[lower-alpha 1] the titles passed to his brother, Francis.

Cora, Countess of Strafford, John Singer Sargent, 1908

On 15 October 1863, Byng married Countess Henrietta Louisa Elizabeth Danneskiold-Samsøe (a maternal granddaughter of the 1st Marquess of Ailesbury) and they had four children:

• Hon. George Albert Edward Alexander (1867–1893)
• Hon. John George Thomas Wentworth (1870–1894)
• Lady Mary Elizabeth Agnes (d. 1946), married Count Maurice de Mauny Talvande.
• Lady Amy Frederica Alice (1865–1961), married Sidney Agar, 4th Earl of Normanton.

After his wife's death in 1880, Byng married on 6 December 1898 Cora Colgate née Smith (a wealthy American widow), but they did not have any children, Byng dying only five months later.

Byng had been buried in a family vault in the churchyard of St John's Potter's Bar with his first wife. When the church had become disused and prone to vandalism, the bodies were exhumed in 1935 and moved to a mausoleum at the nearby family estate of Wrotham Park.[2]