The Honourable Mervyn Robert Howard Molyneux Herbert (27 December 1882 – 26 May 1929) of Tetton, Kingston St Mary^[1] in Somerset, was a career diplomat and a first-class cricket player.

Origins

Herbert was born at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, the third son of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, a wealthy landowner, British cabinet minister, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. His mother (his father's second wife and cousin) was Elizabeth Catherine Howard (1856-1929^[2]) ("Elsie"), a daughter of Henry Howard of Greystoke Castle, near Penrith, Cumberland, a son of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard, younger brother of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth Howard's brother was Esmé Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Penrith.

Herbert was a younger full brother of the writer and politician Aubrey Herbert and was a younger half-brother of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the noted Egyptologist who, together with Howard Carter, discovered Tutankhamen's tomb.^[3] Mervyn travelled to Egypt for the official opening of Tutankhamen's tomb in November 1922.^[4]

Personal life

He was educated at Eton College and at Balliol College, Oxford.^[3]

In 1921 he married Mary Elizabeth Willard, a daughter of Joseph E. Willard, the US ambassador to Spain, and younger sister of Belle Willard, the wife of Kermit Roosevelt, son of the former US president Theodore.^[5][6] He had three children.

Cricket career

Herbert was a right-handed middle-order batsman. He played for Eton in the 1901 Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord's, and in a house match at Eton that season he and George Lyttelton put on 476 for the second wicket, both scoring double centuries.^[7] In the same year, he made the first of six appearances in first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire, starting off with an innings of 65 in a match against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) at Lord's.^[8]

Though Herbert played occasional matches for Oxford University he was not selected as a blue, and from 1903 most of his first-class cricket was for Somerset. Only in 1909 was he able to play at all regularly and in that season he made his highest first-class score, 78, in the match against Middlesex at Lord's.^[9] He also played an innings of 55 in 1909, batting at No 9 and sharing an eighth wicket partnership of 125 with Talbot Lewis that enabled Somerset to save the match against Kent, the 1909 County Champions, after following on.^[10] He did not play at all after 1912 until he reappeared in one match in each of the 1922, 1923 and 1924 seasons.^[11]

Diplomatic career

Herbert was appointed as an attache in the Foreign Office in 1907.^[12] He became a third secretary in the Diplomatic Service in 1910.^[13] In 1916 he was further promoted to become a second secretary.^[14] And then in 1919 he became a first secretary.^[15] He served in embassies and delegations in Rome, Lisbon, Madrid and Cairo, and was first secretary in Madrid up to 1922, returning to a Whitehall job in the Foreign Office between 1924 and 1926.^[16]

Death

He was reported in the New York Times as having died at the British Embassy in Rome of "malarial pneumonia".^[17] The Times of London reported that he was passing through Rome on his way home from Albania, where his family had extensive interests, and caught malaria that turned to pneumonia.^[18]

References