Benjamin Bathurst (disappearance)
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Bathurst was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

ic envoy
Envoy (title)
In diplomacy, an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary is, under the terms of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, a diplomat of the second class, ranking between an Ambassador and a Minister Resident....

 who disappeared in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. He was the third son of Henry Bathurst
Henry Bathurst (bishop)
Henry Bathurst was an English churchman, a prominent Whig and bishop of Norwich.-Life:He was the seventh son of Benjamin Bathurst, younger brother of Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst, born at Brackley, Northamptonshire, on 16 October 1744. He was educated at Winchester School, and New College,...

, Bishop of Norwich
Bishop of Norwich
The Bishop of Norwich is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Norwich in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers most of the County of Norfolk and part of Suffolk. The see is in the City of Norwich where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided...

.

Bathurst disappeared on or about 25 November 1809, sparking much debate and speculation about his ultimate fate, especially in science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 stories. Recent research suggests the circumstances of Bathurst's disappearance were wildly exaggerated, and that he was almost certainly murdered.

Career

Benjamin Bathurst entered the diplomatic service at an early age and was promoted to the post of Secretary of the British Legation
Legation
A legation was the term used in diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary....

 at Livorno
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...

. In 1805 he married Phillida Call, daughter of Sir John Call, a Cornish
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 landowner and baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

.

In 1809, he was despatched to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 as an envoy by his relative Henry Bathurst
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst KG PC was a British politician.-Background and education:Lord Bathurst was the elder son of Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, by his wife Tryphena, daughter of Thomas Scawen...

, pro tempore
Pro tempore
Pro tempore , abbreviated pro tem or p.t., is a Latin phrase which best translates to "for the time being" in English. This phrase is often used to describe a person who acts as a locum tenens in the absence of a superior, such as the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.Legislative...

 Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His mission was to assist in the reconstruction of Britain and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

's alliance and to try to encourage Emperor Francis II
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz...

 to declare war on France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, which the Emperor did in April
War of the Fifth Coalition
The War of the Fifth Coalition, fought in the year 1809, pitted a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and Bavaria. Major engagements between France and Austria, the main participants, unfolded over much of Central Europe from April to July, with...

.

However, the Austrians were forced to abandon Vienna to the French forces and eventually sued for peace after they were badly defeated by the French at the Battle of Wagram
Battle of Wagram
The Battle of Wagram was the decisive military engagement of the War of the Fifth Coalition. It took place on the Marchfeld plain, on the north bank of the Danube. An important site of the battle was the village of Deutsch-Wagram, 10 kilometres northeast of Vienna, which would give its name to the...

 in July 1809. Bathurst was promptly recalled to London and decided that the safest route was to travel north and take ship from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

.

Disappearance

On 25 November 1809, Bathurst and his German courier, a Herr Krause, who were travelling by chaise
Chaise
A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two - or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage, with a folding hood or calash top for one or two people....

 under the aliases of "Baron de Koch" and "Fischer" respectively, stopped at the town of Perleberg, west of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

After ordering fresh horses at the post house, Bathurst and his companion walked to a nearby inn, the White Swan. After ordering an early dinner, Bathurst is said to have spent several hours writing in a small room set aside for him at the inn. The travellers' departure was delayed and it was not until 9 pm that they were told that the horses were about to be harnessed to their carriage. Bathurst immediately left his room, followed shortly afterwards by Krause, who was surprised to find Bathurst was not in the chaise when he reached it and indeed was nowhere to be found.

The disappearance did not create much excitement at the time, since the country was infested with bandits, stragglers from the French army, and German revolutionaries. Additionally, murders and robberies were so common that the loss of one commercial traveller (which Bathurst was travelling as) was barely noticed, especially since at the time there were hardly any legal authorities in Prussia.

News of Bathurst's disappearance did not reach England for some weeks, until Krause managed to reach Hamburg and take ship for England. In December Bathurst's father, the Bishop of Norwich, received a summons from the Foreign Secretary, Richard Wellesley
Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
Richard Colley Wesley, later Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, KG, PC, PC , styled Viscount Wellesley from birth until 1781, was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator....

, to attend him at Apsley House
Apsley House
Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...

, where Wellesley informed the Bishop of his son's disappearance.

Bathurst's wife Phillida immediately left for Germany to search for her husband, accompanied by the explorer Heinrich Röntgen
Heinrich Röntgen
Heinrich Röntgen , was one of four students recommended as explorers to Joseph Banks' African Association by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the others being Friedrich Hornemann, Ulrich Seetzen, and Johann Ludwig Burckhardt...

. They arrived at Perleberg to find that the authorities had been looking into the affair and that a Captain von Klitzing had been put in charge of the investigation. After Captain Klitzing was notified of Bathurst’s disappearance, he took immediate steps to mobilise his troops and conducted a vigorous search, apparently working on the initial assumption that the missing man had vanished of his own accord. On the 26th the river Stepnitz was dragged, and civilian officials ordered a second search of the village. On 27 November 1809 the Englishman’s valuable fur coat — worth 200 or 300 Prussian thaler
Thaler
The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...

s — was discovered hidden in an outhouse owned by a family named Schmidt. Then, on 16 December, two old women out scavenging in the woods near Quitzow, three miles north of Perleberg, came across Bathurst’s pantaloons.

Investigation quickly revealed that one Auguste Schmidt had been working as ostler in the courtyard of the White Swan on the night Bathurst disappeared, and that his mother, who also worked at the inn, had taken the Englishman’s coat. Frau Kestern, a woman employed at the German Coffee House, testified years later that immediately after Bathurst had visited the establishment, Auguste Schmidt had come in, asked her where the visitor had gone, then hastened after him and (she supposed) taken some opportunity to destroy him.

A reward of 500 thalers was offered for any news and money was paid to members of the local police to expedite matters. This, however, caused the waters to be muddied as many false reports and offers of information were made by people seeking a share of the reward.

In March, Mrs. Bathurst had the entire area of Perleberg searched at vast expense, which included the use of trained dogs, but to no avail. She then travelled to Berlin and then Paris to see Napoleon himself, hoping to obtain from him some account of her husband's fate. However, when she was received by Napoleon, he declared his ignorance of the affair and offered his assistance.

Contemporary press reports

By January 1810, the English and French press had become aware of the affair and had begun to discuss it. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 published a piece in January 1810 which subsequently appeared in other English newspapers:
The French government were agitated by the accusation that they had kidnapped or murdered Bathurst and replied in their official journal, Le Moniteur Universel
Le Moniteur Universel
Le Moniteur Universel was a French newspaper founded in Paris on November 24, 1789 under the title Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universal by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, and which ceased publication on June 30, 1901...

:

1852 discovery

On 15 April 1852, during the demolition of a house on the Hamburg road in Perleberg three hundred paces from the White Swan, a skeleton was discovered under the threshold of the stable. The back of the skull showed a fracture as though from the blow of a heavy instrument. All of the upper teeth were perfect, but one of the lower molars showed signs of having been removed by a dentist. The owner of the house, a mason named Kiesewetter, had purchased the house in 1834 from Christian Mertens, who had been a serving man at the White Swan during the period when Bathurst disappeared.

Bathurst's sister, Mrs. Thistlethwaite, travelled to Perleberg but could not conclusively say whether the skull belonged to her brother or not.

Recent investigation

A detailed investigation conducted by writer Mike Dash
Mike Dash
Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian and researcher. He is best known for his books and articles looking at unusual historical events, anomalous phenomena, and strange beliefs.-Biography:...

  first published in Fortean Times
Fortean Times
Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing and then I Feel Good Publishing , it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000...

concluded that the allegedly mysterious details of the Bathurst disappearance had been greatly exaggerated over the years, and that Bathurst was almost certainly murdered.

In science fiction

  • In H. Beam Piper
    H. Beam Piper
    Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper...

    's 1948 science fiction
    Science fiction
    Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

     story He Walked Around the Horses
    He Walked Around the Horses
    "He Walked Around the Horses" is a science fiction short story by H. Beam Piper. It is initially based on the true story of diplomat Benjamin Bathurst, who mysteriously disappeared in 1809...

    , Bathurst slips into an alternate history
    Alternate history (fiction)
    Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...

     timeline where the American Revolution
    American Revolution
    The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

     and the French Revolution
    French Revolution
    The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

     were both suppressed and there were no Napoleonic Wars. In that alternate world, Bathurst has a counterpart serving as the Royal Governor of Georgia
    Province of Georgia
    The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...

    , there still a British colony. The Bathurst from our timeline is judged to be either insane, or a spy, and so imprisoned. He attempts escape and is fatally shot. His last testament is read by a high ranking British officer, who pronounces it a work of madness. He is especially puzzled by references to a British general named "Wellington
    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
    Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

    ". The officer is revealed to be Sir Arthur Wellesley
    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
    Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

    . Oddly, Piper describes Bathurst in the story as "a rather stout gentleman, of past middle age". However, the real Bathurst was 25 years old at the time of his disappearance.
  • A short story A Toy for Juliette
    A Toy for Juliette
    "A Toy for Juliette" is a short story by Robert Bloch from Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, about Jack the Ripper, being pulled into a dystopic future by a sadistic femme fatale and her mysterious grandfather. There, she attempts to seduce him, only for Jack to find a knife underneath a pillow...

    by Robert Bloch
    Robert Bloch
    Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...

     has Bathurst transported into the distant future where he serves to satisfy the cruel pleasures of the story's main character, Juliette.
  • The short novel Time Echo by Lionel Roberts (a pseudonym
    Pseudonym
    A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

     of Lionel Fanthorpe
    Lionel Fanthorpe
    The Reverend Robert Lionel Fanthorpe is a British priest and entertainer, and has at various times worked as a journalist, teacher, television presenter, author and lecturer...

    ). has Bathurst accidentally transported to a future time where his hatred of Napoleon makes him join with conspirators seeking to overthrow a cruel future conqueror and tyrant.
  • Avram Davidson
    Avram Davidson
    Avram Davidson was an American writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche...

    's Masters of the Maze, has Bathurst as one of a select group of humans (and other sentient beings) who had penetrated to the center of a mysterious "Maze" traversing all of space and time. There he dwells in eternal repose, in company with the Biblical Enoch
    Enoch (ancestor of Noah)
    Enoch is a figure in the Generations of Adam. Enoch is described as Adam's greatx4 grandson , the son of Jared, the father of Methuselah, and the great-grandfather of Noah...

    , the Chinese King Wen
    King Wen
    King Wen may refer to:*King Wen of Zhou*Zhao Mo...

     and Lao Tze, the Greek Apollonius of Tyana
    Apollonius of Tyana
    Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him...

    , and various other sages of the past and future, some of them Martian
    Martian
    As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...

    s.
  • In A. Bertram Chandler
    A. Bertram Chandler
    Arthur Bertram Chandler was a British-Australian science fiction author. He also wrote under the pseudonyms George Whitley, George Whitely, Andrew Dunstan, and S.H.M....

    's "Into the Alternate Universe" the protagonists' spaceship accidentally falls into "a crack between the universes", a vacuum without any matter except people (and other beings) who had fallen there earlier, and who (unless in a spaceship) suffocated instantly. Among others, they see the forever floating body of a man in 19th Century upper-class clothing, who seems to be Bathurst.
  • Bathurst's disappearance is also mentioned in passing in Robert A. Heinlein
    Robert A. Heinlein
    Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...

    's short story "Elsewhen
    Elsewhen
    Elsewhen is a novella by Robert A. Heinlein, concerning time travel and parallel universes. It is collected in the 1953 book Assignment in Eternity but was first published in 1941 in Astounding Science Fiction....

    ", Murray Leinster
    Murray Leinster
    Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history...

    's short novel The Other World, Poul Anderson
    Poul Anderson
    Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...

    's novel "Operation Chaos", Joel Rosenberg
    Joel Rosenberg (science fiction author)
    Joel Rosenberg was a Canadian American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his long-running "Guardians of the Flame" series. Rosenberg was also a guns rights activist...

    's "Guardians of the Flame
    Guardians of the Flame
    Guardians of the Flame is a long running series by author Joel Rosenberg and is arguably his best known work. The series is about a group of college students who participate in a fantasy role-playing game, and are magically transported to the world of the game by their gamemaster.The first book,...

    " Series, Simon Hawke's
    Simon Hawke
    Simon Hawke is an American author of mainly science fiction and fantasy novels. He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D...

     TimeWars
    TimeWars
    TimeWars is a series of twelve science fiction paperback books created and written by author Simon Hawke beginning in 1984. The story involves the adventures of an organization tasked with protecting history from being changed by time travelers...

    series, and early in the 7 November chapter of Anthony Boucher
    Anthony Boucher
    Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

    's 1942 "detective novel" Rocket to the Morgue
    Rocket to the Morgue
    Rocket to the Morgue is a 1942 American locked room mystery novel by Anthony Boucher .- Plotline :Now-dead author Fowler Foulkes and his creation Dr...

    .
  • In Kim Newman
    Kim Newman
    Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...

    's short story "The Gypsies in the Wood", it is mentioned that the Diogenes Club
    The Diogenes Club
    The Diogenes Club is a fictional gentleman's club created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and featured in several Sherlock Holmes stories, most notably "The Greek Interpreter"...

     investigated his disappearance.

In music

Bathurst is also one of the people suspected to be "Benjamin Breeg" from the song "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
"The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" is a song by Iron Maiden from their 14th studio album, A Matter of Life and Death. The song is the leading single from the album, released on 14 August 2006....

" by British heavy metal group Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK