Alexander Münster

Count, later prince, Alexander Otto Hugo Wladimir Münster (1 September 1858 – 12 October 1922) was a German aristocrat who was the owner of Maresfield Park, Maresfield, East Sussex.

Alexander Münster

Early life and family

Alexander Münster was born in Derneburg, Hanover, on 1 September 1858,[1] the son of Prince Georg Herbert Münster (1820 to 1902), German ambassador in London 1873-1885 and subsequently Paris.[2] His mother was his father's first wife, princess Aleksandra Mikhailovna Golitsyna.

Marriage of Count Alexander Munster and Lady Muriel Hay, St Andrews, Wells Street, Illustrated London News, 1890.

In 1890 he married Lady Muriel Hay (1863-1927), daughter of George Hay-Drummond, 12th Earl of Kinnoull, at St Andrews church in Wells Street, London, an event depicted on the front page of The Illustrated London News.[3] The couple had sons Friedrich (1891) and Paul (1898).[4]

Maresfield Park in a watercolour by Benjamin Dean Wyatt.

Life in England

Münster inherited Maresfield Park in 1899 from his friend Hervey Charles Pechell. Münster was in fact living in Maresfield Park while Pechell and his wife resided in Bellagio in Italy. He officiated at the planting of the oak on Maresfield Recreation Ground commemorating Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897 which was performed by her eldest daughter the Empress Frederick of Germany. The Pechells had donated the ground to the parish in 1897 but Münster legally transferred it in 1899. In 1915, during the First World War, it was seized from him by the British government under the Trading With the Enemy laws as he was a German citizen.[1][5] Records relating to Maresfield Park are held by the East Sussex Record Office.[6]

Death and legacy

Münster died on 12 October 1922.[1] Maresfield Park was sold in 1924.[5]

References
  1. Alexander Otto Munster, Count. The Weald. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  2. "Prince von Munster". Kalgoorlie Miner, 9 October 1899, p. 2. Retrieved from Trove, 2 September 2017.
  3. The Illustrated London News, No. 2669, Vol. XCVI, 14 June 1890, p. 1.
  4. Familie zu Münster. Derneburg. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  5. History. Maresfield Parish Council. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  6. Maresfield Park (Count Alexander Munster). National Archives. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
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