A daredevil life of duels, debts, drama and drugs - the man who should have inherited Teesdale

But Harry was also a duellist, a drug addict, an adventurer, a womaniser and, exactly 150 years ago, the whole of south Durham and North Yorkshire must have been agog at the weekly updates printed in The Northern Echo from the London Bankruptcy Court as he was pursued by the most notorious high class prostitute of the age.

From The Northern Echo of 150 years ago this week

In 1871, Harry was only 23 years old but, the court heard, he had wracked up debts of £77,070 – about £9m in today’s values.

Our hero: William Harry Vane Milbank, in 1876

This was probably no surprise to the folks back home in Teesdale. Eton-educated Harry had long had an uneasy relation with money – he used to hold parties in Barningham Park, the home of his father, Sir Frederick Acclom Milbank, and hide £5 notes for the children to find, only to forget where he had hidden them.

He had long had a history of scrapes, too. After Eton, he’d the Royal Horse Guards but had been shot and captured by the Russians who accused him of spying for Poland. He was due to be transported to a Siberian death camp, only to be mysteriously freed at the last moment.

Then he wound up in an opium den in Hamburg where he was set upon by knife-wielding Lascars – Indian militiamen. He shot two and the rest fled, and he claimed he only got into the scrape to rescue an unfortunate girl who was being dragged into the house of ill repute.

The scrape in the Bankruptcy Court in London 150 years ago was even more peculiar.

The creditor, said the Echo’s special correspondent, was Madame Ochsey, “a modiste of Piccadilly” – a modiste was a fashionable milliner – who had supplied Mr Milbank with goods worth £500.

But Madame Ochsey’s solicitor told the court that “he believed it would turn out that they were supplied for the use of the notorious Mabel Gray, who was at that time living under the protection of Mr Milbank”.

Mabel Grey, also known as Annie King, was a demimondaine and the most photographed woman in England whom Harry wanted to marry

Mabel Gray’s real name was Annie King. She was a “demimondaine” – a lady living on gifts from her wealthy lover or, in Mabel’s case, lovers. She was stunningly beautiful, the most photographed woman in the country, a high class prostitute, and Harry was infatuated with her.

He wanted to marry her, but his horrified father and great-uncle had prevented it, buying Mabel/Annie off with a gift of £10,000.

Harry George Powlett, the 4th Duke of Cleveland and 8th Baron Barnard, who spent £1m disinheriting Harry

Instead of taking Annie’s hand, on March 1, 1871, Harry had married Alice, a “legendary beauty” who was the former wife of the Marquis de Belleroche by whom she had had two children. Harry became their stepfather, and his family’s despair deepened further, with his mother Alexina writing that the marriage was “a terrible calamity – misery and disgrace forever”.

Alice de Belleroche, Harry's wife, as drawn by her son, Albert, who was a very highly regarded artist

In the summer of 1871, Harry and Alice were living it up in Paris while his legal representatives contested the bankruptcy case in London. The Echo reported that his barrister said: “What has been said in respect of Mabel Gray is utterly incorrect. I therefore submit, in the first place, that the mode in which this claim is sought to be impugned is perfectly irregular.”

Instead, the case was regularly adjourned, giving the Echo more salacious stories every time it was heard. Eventually, at the end of the year, Harry was forced to accept voluntary bankruptcy and was ordered to pay back his debts.

Not that this was the first time his love life had got him into trouble. Harry definitely fought 20 duels, and could have fought as many as 28. In Germany, he fought three duels over a Russian countess, killing her husband, her brother and her brother-in-law.

William Harry Vane Milbank in duelling action

“I was dragged into almost all of the duels against my will,” he told the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette in 1892. “I very deeply regret that three or four of them have resulted fatally. I was dragged into so many affairs which I would much rather have avoided could I have done so honourably.”

These things, he said, just seemed to happen to him. He recalled escorting a lady home from a ball. “I went to what I supposed was her boudoir but found it to be her bedroom, much to my surprise,” he said, sounding like a character from the Fast Show. “She at once went into hysterics and, of course, I had a duel on my hands.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, after the bankruptcy case, Lord Barnard, who was Harry’s grandmother’s brother, decided Harry was not the chap to inherit his 100,000 acres, his £100,000-a-year annual income and his castle. In 1872, Lord Barnard wracked up legal fees of £1m disinheriting Harry, which included paying £400,000 by way of compensation to Harry’s father, Sir Frederick, and £120,000 to Harry himself.

In 1892, when his lordship died, his third cousin once removed, Henry de Vere Vane, became the 9th Baron Barnard and took ownership of Raby Castle.

Raby Castle, by Jacqueline Truby Newby

We can only guess what Harry did with his surprise windfall – but surely it involved women, horses, travel, duels and drugs.

He spent most of his time in France and Germany, but returned to Barningham and the Milbanks’ other main residence of Thorp Perrow, near Bedale, for hunting and shooting expeditions. Then it was back to the continental for duelling: he fought with daggers in Austria and in Paris

In Austria he fought a duel with daggers; in Paris he killed Baron Diechstein with a pistol shot. He even travelled to New York to act as a second for a friend who was accused of adultery.

William Harry Vane Milbank in duelling action

His last duel was on April 28, 1892, on the sand-dunes of Ostend in Belgium, away from the prying eyes of policemen. It made headlines around the world because of no one knew who his opponent was: perhaps a French nobleman or an aristocratic Englishman?

They’d agreed pistols at 12 paces before “fire”.

“Both fired sharply on the word,” said the Gazette. “Mr Milbank was unharmed, but the Frenchman staggered and fell to the ground. The surgeon went up to him, and found he had been shot in the thigh, the wound being a dangerous one.

“It was bandaged by the surgeon, the flow of blood being arrested as well as possible, and he was then carried by his seconds to a boat and taken aboard a small yacht lying in-shore, which set sail and has not since been heard from. Mr Milbank returned to Ostend with friends.”

Somehow the Gazette obtained an interview with the victorious duellist after what may have been his 28th brush with death. “I have a pistol ball in my body, another in my thigh, a sword thrust in my arm, another in my hand and so on,” he said. “Yet I have never been killed.”

Duelling clearly wasn’t self-destructive enough, so Harry pursued other dangerous avenues: narcotics, cocaine and morphine, to which he became addicted.

From The Northern Echo of October 26, 1892

In October 1892, he went to Davos in Switzerland, “it being hoped that the dry air there would restore him to health”, said the Echo, on October 26. “On Saturday night, Mr Milbank broke a blood vessel, on Sunday there was a renewal of the haemorrhage, and on Monday night, the end came. He was only 43 years of age.”

Unbelievably, the Echo in its obituary didn’t regale its readers with stories of duels or disinheritance or recap the bankruptcy of the summer of 150 years ago on which it had given such regular updates.

Instead, it said what a thoroughly fine chap he was. “Mr Milbank, who was very fond of scientific pursuits, his special bent being towards chemistry and electricity, was a contributor to various reviews,” said the Echo. “He was, when in good health, a keen sportsman, well known in the hunting field as an accomplished rider to hounds, and a good game shot. Mr Milbank also shot a good deal with Prince Ferdinand Radziwill in wolf-hunting and other Continental sports.

“The deceased gentleman was, like his father, Sir Frederick, a staunch and advanced Liberal.”

Its sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times, also avoided all mention of controversy but devoted hundreds of words to the funeral. Harry’s body was returned to Thorp Perrow for burial in the family vault at Well, near Bedale.

“The weather was most favourable during the time of the interment,” said both papers, “and there was a very large concourse of people, including nearly all the principal gentry of the neighbourhood, assembled to pay a last token of respect to one who had gained universal favour in the district.

“At Bedale, most of the business houses put up their shutters during the time of the interment, while many sympathisers drew down their blinds during the time of the funeral.”

They described the coffin and the floral tributes. “The chief one was a conical wreath over six feet in diameter, composed of splendid orchids, white Eucharis lilies, gardenias and other white flowers, the wreath containing a broad heliotrope ribbon, on which was handworked the letters: ‘To my beloved husband.’”

Alice de Belleroche, Harry's wife, was one of the great beauties of the age

Alice had been with Harry when she died, and she was in the first mourning coach with his parents and sister at the funeral.

And, it turned out to his parents’ surprise and grief, that Alice was the chief beneficiary in Harry’s will, inheriting everything, including Thorp Perrow.

Throughout the 1880s, Sir Frederick had been in discussions with Harry about the future of the estate and it had been agreed that it should be left to his younger brother, Powlett. However, a solicitor had forgotten to remove it and so the French beauty inherited this corner of Bedale.

Thorp Perrow, near Bedale, which Harry accidentally lost

Harry’s mother, Alexina, wrote to Alice saying “we are all most deeply grieved to hear that Thorp is left to you”, and it took a decade of wrangling and conferences until Alice agreed to return the property to the family.

• With huge thanks to Jon Smith, of the award-winning Barningham Local History Group