William Bayard Cutting Jr.

William Bayard Cutting Jr. (June 13, 1878 – March 19, 1910)[1] was an American diplomat who served as secretary to the U.S. embassy to the Court of St. James's.

W. Bayard Cutting Jr.
Born
William Bayard Cutting Jr.

June 13, 1878
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedMarch 10, 1910(1910-03-10) (aged 31)
Aswan, Egypt
NationalityAmerican
EducationGroton School
Alma materHarvard University
Columbia Law School
OccupationDiplomat
Spouse(s)
Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe
​
(
m. 1901; his death 1910)
ChildrenIris Origo
Parent(s)William Bayard Cutting
Olivia Peyton Murray Cutting
RelativesJustine Ward (sister)
Bronson M. Cutting (brother)
Robert Fulton Cutting (uncle)
Elise J. Bayard (grandmother)

Early life

Cutting was born in New York City on June 13, 1878,[lower-alpha 1] and grew up at Westbrook, the family estate in Long Island.[3] He was the eldest of four children born to William Bayard Cutting[4] and Olivia Peyton (née Murray) Cutting (1855–1949). His younger siblings included Justine Bayard Cutting, Bronson Murray Cutting, a U.S. Senator,[5] and Olivia Murray Cutting, who married Henry James.[6]

His paternal grandfather was Bronson Murray of Murray Hill. Through his paternal grandparents, Fulton Cutting and Elise Justine Bayard, he was a descendant of the Livingston family[7] His great-grandfather, Robert Bayard, was Robert Fulton's partner, and both married Livingston sisters. Cutting ancestors included members from the Bayard, Schuyler and Van Cortlandt families of colonial New York.[8] His uncle was financier Robert Fulton Cutting.[9]

Cutting prepared at the Groton School, before entering Harvard University in the Autumn of 1896, where he graduated in 1900,[10] completing his courses in only "three years with the highest honors."[1] While at Harvard, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and played on his class baseball team, and was captain of the University golf team,[10] and became friends with George Santayana.[11]

Career

After his graduation from Harvard, Cutting went abroad as private secretary to Joseph Hodges Choate, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, where he met his wife.[1]

After his marriage, Cutting returned to the United States where he studied law at Columbia Law School, but never engaged in active practice.[12] While in New York, they stayed at the residence of his father, 24 East 72nd Street, and he was an active member of the Knickerbocker Club. The Cuttings were friends of novelist Edith Wharton, who wrote, in memorial, the following about him:[12]

"This ceaseless intellectual curiosity was fed by familiarity with many tongues. It seemed to Bayard Cutting a perfectly natural and simple thing to learn a new language for the sake of reading a new book; and he did it, as the French say, 'in playing.' His gift of tongues undoubtedly contributed to his open-mindedness and increased the flexibility of his sympathies. It was the key to different points of view, and that key he was never weary of turning."[12]

In October 1905, they reportedly moved to St. Moritz, Switzerland under the notion that the Swiss mountains would improve his failing health, although this was later denied by his family who said, instead, they moved to visit his wife's family members.[1]

He later moved to Milan where he served as Deputy United States Consul at Milan for several years. While in Italy, Ambassador Lloyd Carpenter Griscom dispatched Cutting to Messina following the 1908 earthquake to establish a consulate and where he was one of the first foreigners to arrive.[12] Cutting "did much to relieve the suffering there."[1] In 1909, he was appointed the Secretary of Embassy at Tangier, a city in northwestern Morocco that is the capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region. However, Harvard offered him a lectureship on British Colonial Government beginning in the fall of 1910, and he, therefore, resigned as Secretary to prepare for his lecture. Cutting then traveled to Egypt to study the British Government there before planning on moving on to other British Colonies.[1]

Personal life

After denying reports of their engagement in February 1901,[13][14] Cutting was married to Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe (1879–1943) at All Saints' Church in London, England on April 30, 1901.[15] Lady Sybil was the youngest daughter of Irish peer and barrister, Hamilton Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart, who served as the last Lord Lieutenant of Kilkenny, and his wife, Lady Margaret Joan Lascelles, a daughter of Henry Lascelles, 4th Earl of Harewood.[16] Her older sister, Lady Joan Elizabeth Mary Cuffe, was married to the British courtier, Sir Harry Lloyd-Verney. Together, William and Lady Sybil were the parents of one daughter:

After a ten day illness, Cutting died of tuberculosis at age 31 on March 10, 1910 in Aswan, Egypt.[1] After his body was returned to the United States, he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Before he died, he wrote to his wife that he wanted their young daughter, Iris, to grow up in Italy, "free from all this national feeling which makes people so unhappy. Bring her up somewhere where she does not belong."[18] Lady Sybil and her daughter settled in Florence, Italy; buying the Villa Medici in Fiesole, one of the city's most spectacular villas. There they formed a close friendship with Bernard Berenson, who lived not far away at I Tatti.

In 1918 his widow remarried to architectural historian Geoffrey Scott,[19], of the Berensonain circle. They divorced in 1926,[20] and she remarried to Percy Lubbock, an essayist, critic and biographer. Lady Sybil was also a writer and published On Ancient Ways; A Winter Journey in 1928,[21] and The Child in the Crystal in 1939.[22]

Honors and legacy

Due to his efforts with the Italian earthquake, the American Red Cross awarded him, along with Ambassador Griscom and Commander Reginald R. Belknap, its Red Cross gold medal of merit in 1909.[23]

In 1910, a number of people jointly gave $25,000 to endow a fellowship "in memory of the late William Bayard Cutting, Jr., of New York, of the Class of 1900."[24] The fellowship was "to be reserved exclusively for men of the highest intellectual attainments and of the greatest promise as productive scholars. It [was] never to be given to the best among any number of applicants, unless the best man is one of the first-rate and well-rounded excellence."[24]

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References
Notes
  1. Some sources indicate Cutting was born in Morristown, New Jersey, others indicate he was born in New York City.[2]
Sources
  1. "WM. B. CUTTING, JR., DIES IN EGYPT; Son of William Bayard Cutting Was ex-Secretary of American Embassy at Tangier. ONCE DIPLOMAT AT MILAN Accepted Recently Harvard Lectureship on British Colonial Government--Married Lady Sybil Cuffe" (PDF). The New York Times. 11 March 1910. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  2. Potter, Hamilton. "William Bayard Cutting, Jr". murrayhistory.com. Murray Family History. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  3. Holliday, Diane; Kretz, Chris (2010). Oakdale. Arcadia Publishing. p. 27. ISBN 9780738572390. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  4. "W.B. CUTTING DIES ON TRAIN" (PDF). The New York Times. 2 Mar 1912. p. 1. Retrieved February 18, 2013.
  5. Cutting, Bronson Murray, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
  6. "MISS CUTTING ONE OF BRIDES OF A DAY: DAUGHTER OF MRS. BAYARD CUTTING MARRIES HENRY JAMES OF ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE". New York Times. 12 June 1917. p. 13.
  7. Livingston, Edwin Brockholst (1901). The Livingstons of Livingston manor; being the history of that branch of the Scottish house of Callendar which settled in the English province of New York during the reign of Charles the Second; and also including an account of Robert Livingston of Albany, "The nephew," a settler in the same province and his principal descendants. New York: The Knickerbocker Press. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  8. Columbia University Quarterly Volume 14, 1912, Page 286
  9. Bergen, Tunis Garret (1915). Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  10. "Obituary | News | The Harvard Crimson". The Harvard Crimson. March 12, 1910. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  11. Santayana, George (2001). The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948-1952. MIT Press. p. 447. ISBN 9780262195713. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  12. Wells, Edgar H.; Wharton, Edith (1947). W. Bayard Cutting Jr. New York: Marchbanks Press. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  13. "CUTTING CUFFE ENGAGEMENT; The Morning Post Says W. Bayard Cutting, Jr., Will Marry Lady Sybyl Cuffe After Easter" (PDF). The New York Times. 14 February 1901. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  14. "W. Bayard Cutting Denies Engagement" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 February 1901. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  15. "THE CUTTING-CUFFE WEDDING; W. Bayard Cutting, Jr., Married to Lady Sybyl Cuffe at All Saints' Church, London--Few Guests Present" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 May 1901. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  16. The Peerage.com
  17. "MISS CUTTING ENGAGED.; Daughter of Late W. Bayard Cutting to Wed the Marchese Origo" (PDF). The New York Times. 7 October 1923. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  18. Stille, Alexander (21 September 2018). "Living With Fascism in Italy". Retrieved 20 January 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  19. "MISS KING TO WED LIEUT. C. DERHAM. JR.; Sister of Lieut. Col. Van R.C. King Betrothed to Officer at Camp Upton. BROTHER ALSO TO MARRY Col. King Engaged to Mrs. Jewell Minturn -- Troth of Lady Cutting and Geoffrey Scott" (PDF). The New York Times. 5 April 1918. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  20. "DIVORCES GEOFFREY SCOTT.; Lady Sybil, Whose First Husband Was W. Bayard Cutting, Gets Decree" (PDF). The New York Times. 21 April 1926. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  21. Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1928. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. 1929. p. 695. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  22. Lubbock, Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe (1939). The Child in the Crystal. J. Cape. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  23. The American Red Cross Bulletin. American Red Cross. 1910. p. 5. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  24. University, Harvard (1917). Catalogue - Harvard University. Harvard University. pp. 297–298. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
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