CHESHUNT, an urban district in the Hertford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, on the Lea, 14 m. N. of London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1891) 9620; (1901) 12,292. The church of St Mary is Perpendicular and has been enlarged in modern times. A college was founded, for the education of young men to the ministry of the Connexion, by Selina countess of Huntingdon in 1768 at Trevecca-isaf near Talgarth, Brecknockshire. In 1792 it was moved to Cheshunt, and became known as Cheshunt College. In 1904, as it was felt that the college was unable properly to carry on its work under existing conditions, it was proposed to amalgamate it with Hackney College, but the Board of Education refused to sanction any arrangement which would set aside the requirements of the deed of foundation, namely that the officers and students of Cheshunt College should subscribe the fifteen articles appended to the deed, and should take certain other obligations. In 1905 it was decided by the board to reorganize the college and remove it to Cambridge.
Nursery and market gardening, largely under glass, brick-making and saw-mills are the chief industries of Cheshunt. Roman coins and other remains have been found at this place, and an urn appears built into the wall of an inn. A Romano-British village or small town is indicated. There was a Benedictine nunnery here in the 13th century. Of several interesting mansions in the vicinity one, the Great House, belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and a former Pengelly House was the residence of Richard Cromwell the Protector after his resignation. Theobalds Park was built in the 18th century, but the original mansion was acquired by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in 1561; being taken in 1607 by James I. from Robert Cecil, first earl of Salisbury, in exchange for Hatfield House. James died here in 1625, and Charles I. set out from here for Nottingham in 1642 at the outset of the Civil War. One of the entrances to Theobalds Park is the old Temple Bar, removed from Fleet Street, London, in 1878.
CHESIL BANK (A.S. ceosol, pebble bank), a remarkable beach of shingle on the coast of Dorsetshire, England. It is separated from the mainland for 8 m. by an inlet called the Fleet, famous for its swannery, and continues in all for 18 m. south-eastward from Abbotsbury, terminating at the so-called Isle of Portland. The height of the bank at the Portland end is 35 ft. above spring-tide level, and its breadth 200 yds. The greater height at this end accords with the general-movement of shingle along this coast from west to east; and for the same reason the pebbles of the bank decrease in size from 1 to 3 in. in diameter at Portland to the size of peas at the western end, where the breadth is only 170 yds.
CHESNELONG, PIERRE CHARLES (1820-1894), French politician, was born at Orthez in the department of the Basses-Pyrénées, on the 14th of April 1820. In 1848 he proclaimed himself a Republican; but after the establishment of the Second Empire he changed his views, and in 1865 was returned to the chamber as the official candidate for his native place. He at once became conspicuous, both for his eloquence and for his uncompromising clericalism, especially in urging the necessity for maintaining the temporal power of the papacy. In 1869 he was again returned, and, devoting himself with exceptional ability to financial questions, was in 1870 appointed to report the budget. During and after the war, for which he voted, he retired for a while into private life; but in 1872 he was again elected deputy, this time as a Legitimist, and took his seat among the extreme Right. He was the soul of the reactionary opposition that led to the fall of Thiers; and in 1873 it was he who, with Lucien Brun, carried to the comte de Chambord the proposals of the chambers. Through some misunderstanding, he reported on his return that the count had accepted all the terms offered, including the retention of the tricolour flag; and the count published a formal denial. Chesnelong now devoted himself to the establishment of Catholic universities and to the formation of Catholic working-men’s clubs. In 1876 he was again returned for Orthez, but was unseated, and then beaten by the republican candidate. On the 24th of November, however, he was elected to a seat in the senate, where he continued his vigorous polemic against the progressive attempts of the republican government to secularize the educational system of France until his death in 1894.
CHESNEY, CHARLES CORNWALLIS (1826-1876), British soldier and military writer, the third son of Charles Cornwallis Chesney, captain on the retired list of the Bengal Artillery, and nephew of General F.R. Chesney, was born in Co. Down, Ireland, on the 29th of September 1826. Educated at Blundell’s school, Tiverton, and afterwards at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he obtained his first commission as second lieutenant of engineers in 1845, passing out of the academy at the head of his term. His early service was spent in the ordinary course of regimental duty at home and abroad, and he was stationed in New Zealand during the Crimean War. Among the various reforms in the British military system which followed from that war was the impetus given to military education; and in 1858 Captain Chesney was appointed professor of military history at Sandhurst. In 1864 he succeeded Colonel (afterwards Sir Edward) Hamley in the corresponding chair at the Staff College. The writings of these two brilliant officers had a great influence not only at home, but on the continent and in America. Chesney’s first published work (1863) was an account of the Civil War in Virginia, which went through several editions. But the work which attained the greatest reputation was his Waterloo Lectures (1868), prepared from the notes of lectures orally delivered at the Staff College. Up to that time the English literature on the Waterloo campaign, although voluminous, was made up of personal reminiscences or of formal records, useful materials for history rather than history itself; and the French accounts had mainly taken the form of fiction. In Chesney’s lucid and vigorous account of the momentous struggle, while it illustrates both the strategy and tactics which culminated in the final catastrophe, the mistakes committed by Napoleon are laid bare, and for the first time an English Writer is found to point out that the dispositions of Wellington were far from faultless. And in the Waterloo Lectures the Prussians are for the first time credited by an English pen with their proper share in the victory. The work attracted much attention abroad as well as at home, and French and German translations were published.
Chesney was for many years a constant contributor to the newspaper press and to periodic literature, devoting himself for the most part to the critical treatment of military operations, and professional subjects generally. Some of his essays on military biography, contributed mainly to the Edinburgh Review, were afterwards published separately (1874). In 1868 he was appointed a member of the royal commission on military education, under the presidency first of Earl De Grey and afterwards of Lord Dufferin, to whose recommendations were due the improved organization of the military colleges, and the development of military education in the principal military stations of the British army. In 1871, on the conclusion of the Franco-German War, he was sent on a special mission to France and Germany, and furnished to the government a series of valuable reports on the different siege operations which had been carried out during the war, especially the two sieges of Paris. These reports were published in a large volume, which was issued confidentially. Never seeking regimental or staff preferment, Colonel Chesney never obtained any, but he held at the time of his death a unique position in the army, altogether apart from and above his actual place in it. He was consulted by officers of all grades on professional matters, and few have done more to raise the intellectual standard of the British officer. Constantly engaged in literary pursuits, he was nevertheless laborious and exemplary in the discharge of his public duties, while managing also to devote a large part of his time to charitable and religious offices. He was abstemious to a fault; and, overwork of mind and body telling at last on a frail constitution, he died after a short illness on the 19th of March 1876. He had become lieutenant-colonel in 1873, and at the time of his death he was commanding Royal Engineer of the London district. He was buried at Sandhurst.