William Marshall Cazalet

Cazalet was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 8 July 1865.[2] He was the son of Edward Cazalet, merchant and industrialist, and his wife, Elizabeth Sutherland Marshall (d. 1888), daughter and heir of William Marshall, doctor and Danish consul in Edinburgh.[3] Cazalet graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1889. At Oxford, he won a Blue in real tennis (jeu de paume) in 1886, 1887 and 1889, and won the singles in 1889.[2] His father had a real tennis court built for him at Fairlawne, the family home in Shipbourne, Kent.[3]

Cazalet was a wealthy landowner, with friends including Rudyard Kipling.[2] He served as a Lieutenant in the West Kent Yeomanry Cavalry, and held appointments by the Crown as High Sheriff of Kent, a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Kent.[2]

Cazalet represented Great Britain at the 1908 Olympic Games in jeu de paume.[2][4]

Cazalet was painted by John Singer Sargent in 1902, with his horse and wearing a hunting jacket.[5][6] The painting was sold at Christie's, New York in May 2007, with an estimate of US$2–3 million,[7] and realised $1.832 million.[8] In 2015, Barbra Streisand donated Sargent's 1900–01 group portrait of his wife and two children, Mrs. Cazalet and Children Edward and Victor, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[9]

Mrs. Cazalet with Edward and Victor Cazalet, by John Singer Sargent, 1900–01

He married Maud Lucia Heron-Maxwell (known as Molly; d. 1952),[10] daughter of Sir John Robert Heron Heron-Maxwell, 7th Baronet.[3][11]

Cazalet's eldest son Edward, born 1894, was killed in action in France in 1916.[10] His second son, Victor Cazalet, and his daughter Thelma Cazalet-Keir, both became Members of Parliament, and his third son was the racehorse trainer Peter Cazalet.[2]

Cazalet died on 22 October 1932 in Tonbridge, Kent, England.[2][12]