Charles Sydney Gibbes was born on 19 January 1876. His birthplace was the small town of which is more or less in the centre of the United Kingdom. He came from Yorkshire which is the largest county in England. Yorkshire people profess that their county is the most magnificent in the kingdom. They sometimes allude to Yorkshire as ”God’s Own County.”
Gibbes grew up in an industrial town called Rotherham. His father, John, was a bank manager of the Old Bank in Rotherham. Gibbes had several siblings and some of them died young. Gibbes was raised in a Christian household. His family were Protestants like over 90% of the people in Great Britain at the time. Gibbes went to a local school. He then attended Aberystwyth University for a year before applying to Cambridge.
Gibbes was a bright boy and very sincere. His family thought that he should become a minister of religion. Gibbes went up to Cambridge University. This was no small achievement at the time for a middle class boy from a town without a tradition of university education.
Gibbes enrolled at St John’s College on 27 April 1896. In those times it was not unusual to start university in the middle of the academic year. These days it would be impossible. St John’s was and is a fairly distinguished college. He studied Moral Science Tripos. Moral Science was Philosophy and some Theology. Tripos is the Cambridge way of saying a degree with public exams in all three years of the course’s duration. Gibbes came into contact with many upper class undergraduates. His mild Yorkshire accent was frowned on by the nobbier boys. He soon lost his accent and affected something close to a public school accent. Gibbes added an ‘e’ to his surname. No one else spells Gibbs that way. He had no trouble graduating in 1899.
Gibbs then stayed on at Cambridge to do a course to prepare him for ordination. He was recognised as being high minded and morally upstanding. His appearance and manners were impeccable. There was a more light hearted side to his personality. He enjoyed the theatre. He expressed his attraction to women but nothing came of it. He was also known to anger. He continued his seminarian studies in Salisbury. He came to believe that he was unsuitable to be a priest.
Gibbes cared about getting things right in every sense of the phrase. He was a little introverted. He was courteous, dependable, unassuming, pragmatic, morally upstanding, honest, austere, rigid, urbane, smartly attired, wise and very mature. He was so rigid in his habits that some wondered whether he bordered on Asperger’s syndrome.
Charles Sydney Gibbes was handy at languages. Having completed his theological studies but deciding against ordination he was unsure what to do with himself. He taught for a while in the UK. Caning was used very freely for minor misdeeds such as being late to a lesson. Gibbes was as ready as others to cane boys for trivial infractions of the rules. This was not seen as being at all inconsistent with the Christian ethic. In 1901 Gibbes, being an adventurous sort, took a position teaching English in Russia. He took ship for St Petersburg. He taught for two notable families there. Later he was employed at the St Petersburg School of Law. The Russian upper crust was coming to recognise the importance of English. Up until that time French had been regarded as by far the most estimable foreign language. However, in the years leading up to the First World War the popularity of English was growing partly due to the Imperial Family speaking it at home. Gibbes became vice-president of the St Petersburg Guild English Teachers. The fact that such a guild existed indicates how numerous such teachers were in the capital.
Gibbes was curious about the mystical side of Christianity. He also wrote down his dreams. He even had his palm read. He seemed to be on a spiritual quest. He attended the Anglican Church in St Petersburg. He found it pallid and unsatisfying. The Orthodox Church seemed to embody the splendid mystery of faith. It was dark yet colourful, it was headily atmospheric and it struck a chord with him.
The Tsarina Alexandra heard about Gibbes. In 1908 he was invited to improve the accent of the Grand Duchesses. As part of his contract he was accommodated in the Catherine Palace. He began with the eldest pair of the Tsar’s daughters. They already spoke fluent English but had slight Russian accents with Irish inflection. This Irish influence came from their Irish nanny Margaretta Eagar. In 1913 he was appointed English tutor to the Tsaervich. He worked together with the Swiss Pierre Gilliard who taught the family French.
Mr Gibbes was aware of his pupils’ shortcomings. He wrote of Olga, ‘she was easily irritated and her manners were a little harsh.’ Some historians such as Greg King and Penny Wilson had claimed that Gibbes was only mediocre as a tutor.
Gibbes was an instant hit with the Tsarevich. Gibbes was old enough to be the boy’s father but would have been a fairly young father. C S Gibbes later wrote of Alexei, ‘ Disagreeable things he bore silently and without grumbling. He was also kind heated and during the last period of his life he was the only one who liked to give things away. Influenced through his emotions he did what he was told by his father. His mother loving him passionately, could not be firm with him, he got most of his wishes through her.’
Gibbes wrote that the Tsar had ‘a very honest character, a compassionate heart and a hatred for any sort of familiarity.’
In February 1917 the Tsar was obliged to abdicate. The Provisional Government under Prince Lvov assumed power and abolished the monarchy. Incidentally despite his title Prince Lvov was not related to the Romanovs. The Romanovs were then confined to the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Gibbes wanted to live in the Alexander Palace to so he could be closer to the family but the Provisional Government declined his request.
The Bolsheviks launched their revolution in October 1917. The Romanovs were removed to Tobolsk in Siberia. Gibbes voluntarily accompanied the family. Indeed he had to apply to the Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky for permission to move to Tobolsk. He did so out of a sense of duty. One of the Romanovs maids was Anna Demidova fell in love with Gibbes and made overtures to him. He ignored her and wrote she was ‘ a woman of a singularly timid and shrinking disposition.’ Because Gibbes demonstrated no attraction towards women. Itt has been speculated that he was gay. There is no evidence that he ever had a gay liaison.
The Imperial Family had had all its wealth confiscated. The Romanovs kept some hidden jewels with them. The Romanovs were unable to pay for the services of Gibbes and others. Gibbes and his colleagues chose to serve their master solely out of devotion. Mr Gibbes was in a bad financial situation when another imperial retainer implored him to lend her some money. She was Baroness Sophie Buxhoevden. The baroness was a Dane who had been part of the Romanov household for several years. Gibbes unwisely lent her 1 300 roubles which she never repaid. She later claimed that Gibbes had not lent her anything. Gibbes mentioned this loan in correspondence with Gilliard. He was unlikely to invent this in a letter to a third party.
In April 1918 the Tsar was taken away from his family. He was to be conducted to Moscow and put on trial by the Bolsheviks. The Romanovs put on a farewell party. They expected Nikolai to be executed. Gibbes recalled, ‘It was the most mournful and depressing party I ever attended. There was not much talk and no pretence at gaiety. It was solemn and tragic: a fit prelude to an inescapable tragedy ‘ Anna Demidova said to him, ‘I am so frightened Mr Gibbes I do not know what to do.’ The Tsarina elected to accompany her husband. With the parents away an even greater responsibility fell on Gibbes’ shoulders. In fact after a few months the parents were returned to their children after a few weeks without a trial ensuing.
Gibbes was later moved to Yekaterinaburg (Sverdlovsk) when the Romanovs were there. It was May 1918 when they travelled by the steamship Rus along the river to Yekaterinaburg. C S Gibbes recalled the last meal the children ate in Tobolsk. Gibbes managed to find some levity even in this grim situation. ‘ It was only on this last evening that we called for the two remaining bottles of wine. It was impossible to take them away and it was agreed that the next best thing to do was to drink them. While we were doing so the new commandant was heard sneaking down the corridor. We had only just time to hide the bottles under the table. He walked in and stood by the door. He gave a quizzical look all around. We felt like schoolboys caaught doing something naughty. Our eyes met and we could not contain ourselves any longer and fell about in wild laughter. ‘
On the voyage Yekaterinaburg the predicament of the Romanovs became appreciably worse. The Red Army soldiers were openly hostile and insolent. They subjected the family to cat calls. ‘It was dreadful what they did.’ Gibbes adopted son later recalled his father telling him the screams of the grand duchesses haunted him for the rest of his life. ‘’It was his worst memory even more so than learning that the family had been marytred’’ said George Gibbes of his father. Gibbes was implying that the soldiers fondled the princesses against their will. Was he even implying that they were raped?
However, C S Gibbes was not held in Ipatiev House which the Bolsheviks called the House of Special Purpose. He was not allowed into that house to meet his former employers. Mr Gibbes and Gilliard were housed in a railway carriage. He and Gilliard had come to Yekaterinaburg of their own free will but they were informed that they were not permitted to leave.
Not all servants of the Romanovs showed such fidelity. Baroness Buxhoevoden was one who told the Bolsheviks were hiding their jewels. The jewels were then sequestrated by the Bolsheviks. In gratitude for her assistance the Bolshevisk let this woman go. She returned to her native Denmark. The other servants of the Romanovs were held as prisoners.
In May 1918 Gibbes and Gilliard were taken out of Yekaterinaburg and held in a nearby town. He and Gibbes had sent messages to the British consul and the Swedish consul pleading with them to intercede with the Bolsheviks to prevent the Romanovs from coming to harm. The British consul assured Gibbes that there was nothing to worry about. Gibbes had to spend a lot of time cooped up with his Swiss colleague Gilliard. Relations between the two frayed at this critical juncture.
Gibbes found out about the liquidation of the Romanovs soon after it occurred. He was devastated. At first he could not believe it. He desperately wished to think that at least some of the family had survived. He went to Ipatiev House and gathered a few relics of the family. He was to treasure these oddments to the end of his days. When the Whites took the town he helped with the inquiry. C S Gibbes and his colleague Gilliard did their best to establish the truth of what happened the night of 17/18 July 1918. Were the Romanovs really killed? All of them? Where were they interred? Gibbes and Gilliard unwillingly arrived at the conclusion that all of the Romanovs had been shot dead. There were rumours within weeks of the killings that one of the family survived – that it was the tsarevich or one of the grand duchesses although not Anastasia. (The Anastasia canard was to come only a few years later.)Gibbes and Gilliard helped the White Russian commission of inquiry into the slayings of the Romanovs. Gibbes and Gilliard also conducted their own inquiry in case the White Russian investigation was tainted by bias. Moreover, an investigation by two foreigners might carry more weight abroad than a Russian one in the midst of a civil war where the two sides had every reason to exaggerate or invent crimes attributable to their enemies. Gibbes and Gilliard had also lost some of their colleagues. Dr Botkin and several of the household staff had also been murdered for the crime of working for the Romanovs. The Reds were vindictive enough to kill Gibbes’ pet dog. Gibbes and Gilliard visited the Four Brothers Mine where the burnt remains of the Romanovs had been cast. They worked closely with Sokolov – one of the Romanovs’ servants – in investigating the killings.
Charles Sydney Gibbes later fled east as the Reds looked poised to retake the town. He was later captured by the Reds but soon released. The British Army as well as several other armies intervened in Russia to assist the Whites. Gibbes was given an administrative position with the British Forces in Siberia. He left Russia by way of Manchuria. There as a large White Russian community there. He adopted a 15 year old Russian orphan there whom he named George Paveliev. Gibbes finally sailed back to the UK which had had not seen for years. His adoptive son came with him. He later bought a farm for George when the boy had grown up
Gibbes moved back and forth between Manchuria and England. It was not until 1928 that he claimed his MA from Cambridge. He was deeply impressed by the White Russians he knew. This caused him to be baptised into the Orthodox Church. C S Gibbes adulted his late pupil the tsarevich. Finally he was ordained as a monk. He had a tonsure. He wished to take the name Father Alexei but this was refused. He took the name Nicholas in religious contexts. This was in memory of the late Tsar. Gibbes helped to found an Orthodox Church in Oxford. When he led prayers for the repose of the souls of the Romanovs he would weep before composing himself. Gibbes faith was not just about prayer. He devoted himself to helping the impoverished. He lived as a monk until his death in 1963.
There is still and Orthodox Church in Oxford but it is not in the building that Gibbes had.