Louis Huth - Character

Character

It seems that while as a young man he worked in the firm founded by his father, at least in his early days Louis Huth exhibited little of the work-ethic that characterised his father and which had helped created the financial success of his business; rather Louis, described as ‘frivolous and philandering’ was ‘quite the cock of the roost, a sort of Count D’Orsay; whatever he did immediately became the fashion for all the bucks in town, and when he noticed a young lady (of whom there were a number of pretty ones) her fortune was made.’ It was obviously something of a relief to his parents when in 1854, at the age of 33 Louis, ‘the great bachelor’, disclosed his secret romance with Helen Ogilvy, aged 17 (daughter of Thomas Ogilvy of Corrimony, Inverness-shire), whom he then married on 11 April the following year. Mrs Huth was some sixteen and a half years younger than her husband, having been born in September 1837.

Louis Huth was apparently endowed with a strong sense of humour and was very particular in aspects of his appearance, so ‘that there cannot be many old men who keep a collection of wigs of different colour, that those around can be warned in time of the changing moods of the wearer!' Huth died at his London house in February 1905 aged 83 after developing pneumonia. He was buried at the Church of All Saints, Waldon, close to Possingworth.