Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/155

 Van Straubenzee British minister at Athens wrote to Lord Clarendon on 4 April 1855, mentioning in the most complimentary terms the conduct of the ‘buffs’ while at the Piræus.

On 14 April Van Straubenzee sailed with his battalion for the Crimea, and joined the division of Sir Colin Campbell. On 11 May he was made brigadier-general. His brigade, consisting of the ‘buffs,’ the 31st and the 72nd regiments, was posted to the right attack, and he commanded it in the fight at the Quarries on 7 June. On 30 July he was appointed to command the first brigade of the light division, and took part in both assaults on the Redan, was wounded in that of 8 Sept., and was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette, 3 Oct. 1855). Van Straubenzee returned home in July 1856. For his services he was made a companion of the order of the Bath, military division, and an officer of the legion of honour. He received the British war medal with clasp, the Sardinian and Turkish medals, the third class of the order of the Medjidie, and was promoted to be a temporary major-general on 24 July 1856. On the 29th of the same month he was appointed to command the infantry brigade at Dublin.

On 20 Sept. 1857 Van Straubenzee was gazetted to the command of a brigade in the expedition to China under Lieutenant-general Thomas Ashburnham, having already sailed in June for Hong Kong. Many of the troops destined for China were diverted to India on account of the mutiny, and in November Ashburnham and his staff also left Hong Kong for India, leaving Van Straubenzee in command of the British land forces in China. In December the available troops from the garrison of Hong Kong were conveyed by the fleet to the Canton river, and the island of Hainan was occupied. Van Straubenzee arrived on 22 Dec., and the attack on Canton by the allied naval and military forces of England and France was commenced by a bombardment on 28 Dec., and on 5 Jan. 1858 the city was taken. On 19 June Van Straubenzee was made a knight-commander of the Bath (military division) for his services. He was promoted to be major-general on the establishment on 11 Aug. 1859. He received the war medal and clasp. On 15 April 1860 he was compelled by ill-health to resign his command, and returned to England.

On 7 April 1862 Van Straubenzee took up the command of a division of the Bombay army at Ahmadabad. He was appointed colonel of the 47th foot on 31 May 1865. In this year he was temporarily in command of the Bombay army, pending the arrival of Sir Robert Cornelis Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) [q. v.] He returned to England on 16 Feb. 1866, was transferred to the colonelcy of the 39th foot on 8 Dec. 1867, and was promoted to be lieutenant-general on 27 March 1868.

On 3 June 1872 Van Straubenzee was appointed governor and commander-in-chief at Malta, and was promoted to be general on 29 April 1875. He held the government of Malta for six years, was made a grand cross of the Bath (military division) on 29 May 1875. He returned to England in June 1878. He retired from the service on a pension on 1 July 1881, and settled at Bath. He died, without issue, on 10 Aug. 1892, and was buried in the Bathwick cemetery. Van Straubenzee married, on 18 Nov. 1841, Charlotte Louisa, youngest daughter of General John Luther Richardson of the East India Company's service, and of the Cramond family; she survived him.

[War Office Records; Despatches; Cannon's Historical Records of the 39th or the Dorsetshire Regiment of Foot, and of the 3rd Regiment, ‘The Buffs;’ Russell's War from the Death of Lord Raglan to the Evacuation of the Crimea, 1856; Lane-Poole's Life of Sir Harry Parkes; private sources; Burke's Landed Gentry, ii.] 

VAN VOERST, ROBERT (1596–1636), engraver, was born in 1596 at Arnheim in Holland, and studied at Utrecht under Crispin de Passe the elder. Some small plates of animals by him, which appeared in Passe's ‘La Lumière de la Peinture,’ 1643, were probably executed at this period. He came to England in 1628, and during the next few years engraved portraits of the queen of Bohemia, the Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, and several English noblemen, from pictures by Honthorst, Dobson, Geldorp, Miereveldt, Mytens, and Janssen. Later he was employed by Vandyck, for whose ‘Centum Icones’ he executed the portraits of Christian, duke of Brunswick, Ernest, count Mansfeldt, Philip, earl of Pembroke, Sir Kenelm Digby, Simon Vouet, Inigo Jones, and himself. Van Voerst's masterpiece is the plate of Charles I and Henrietta Maria holding a laurel wreath, from the picture by Vandyck. He held the appointment of engraver to Charles I; and Vanderdort, in his catalogue of the royal collection, mentions a drawing of the Holy Family by him which he had presented to the king. Van Voerst died of the plague in London in 1636. His prints number only about thirty, but they are of very fine quality, rivalling in brilliancy those of his compatriot, Vorsterman. His portrait of himself has been copied by