User:Edencars/sandbox/Charles Heath 1826-1900

Charles Heath 1826-1900Was English Tutor to the last Tzar of Russia and lived with the royal family for 40 years, He was born in Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire to a wealthy landowner from Ewelme in Oxfordshire. After a term at Cambridge he travelled to St Petersburg after being invited to teach English to the Grand Dukes Alexander and Vladimir Alexandrovich and assist in the education of their younger brothers Sergey and Paul, He also gave private lessons and lived and worked with the family of the famous writer and philologist Nikolay Grech. He also taught English to the future Russian foreign minister Count Lamsdorf, after the Crimean War in November 1856, he was invited to join the staff of the Alexander Lyceum on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, the premier, exclusive boys’ school, where Russia’s future diplomats and high officials were educated. In the 1860s he tutored the younger sons of Alexander II – Grand Dukes Sergey and Paul – in English and also to teach watercolour painting to their sister Maria Alexandrovna, (who apparently continued to receive lessons from him until she left Russia after her marriage to Prince Alfred in 1873). He also taught English to the three youngest sons of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, Heath finally took on the most important role of his career – teaching English to Nicholas, eldest son of the tsarevich Alexander, his brother George and eventually their younger brother Michael. Once established in the post he was invited to move his family to Gatchina where he was provided with a comfortable apartment. He also taught watercolour painting to their younger sister Olg. In 1889 Heath had begun suffering from heart disease and when he became seriously ill at the beginning of 1900 the Dowager Empress sent him to the fishing lodge at Langinkoski to rest and recuperate under the care of Dr Nikolay Kalinin, from the city hospital at Gatchina. On his return Heath retreated to his apartment in a building on the Fontanka in the grounds of the Anichkov Palace where he died on 19 November 1900 (2 December NS). An impressive Anglican funeral service was arranged for him at the English Church in St Petersburg on 23 November (6 December NS), attended by a considerable gathering of Russian dignitaries and court officials, after which the Dowager Empress, Grand Dukes Konstantin and Mikhail Alexandrovich, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, and Alexander Georgievich, Duke of Leuchtenberg followed the coffin to the Smolensky Cemetery for burial. Nicholas unfortunately was absent, lying sick with typhoid fever at the Livadia Palace in Crimea at the time. The news of Heath’s death was reported in The Times, which noted how the ‘great number of costly wreaths in silver and flowers from the Tsar, the Empress, the Grand Dukes, the British Ambassador, and others, with many touching inscriptions, testified to the affectionate esteem in which Mr. Heath was held by the Russian Imperial family and a large circle of friends