Edward Knight's Family
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Cecil Rice continued.
He married, first, in Edinburgh, on December 5th 1866, Frances Ann, only daughter of Mark Napier, Sheriff of Dumfries – at beautiful girl of eighteen.
Eighteen years later, his wife, who was born on June 12th 1848, died, on July 5th 1884 – leaving him with nine children between the ages of sixteen and four years old.
Colonel Rice married, secondly, on September 22nd 1886, Lady Matilda Horatia Seymour, the sister of the 5th Marquess of Hertford. She died, aged eighty-six, on March 11th 1916.
Colonel Rice died, also aged eighty-six, at Kingscote House, East Grinstead on May 6th 1917. (Epitaph page 247).
'My father was very tall, and all his life had a wonderful figure and carriage. 'A notable figure, his upright soldierly bearing and commanding stature making him conspicuous in any assembly' – so it was written of him at the age of eighty. Until that age he had possessed excellent health but a sudden stroke in 1911 rendered him an invalid for the remaining years of his life.
Like many others of his brothers, he was very good-looking, with the rare attraction, difficult to define, that the Rice brothers all possessed. My father had this to a marked degree, but was entirely unconscious of the fact. He was by nature happy, enjoying his neighbours' society, courteous ...
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