Author Topic: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George  (Read 24377 times)

Offline Viktoria

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #36 on: Friday 26 September 14 13:34 BST (UK) »
 Thankyou, it really is a valuable photo then. It also proves that no-one could imagine how long the war would go on for or the utter destruction, otherwise such a grave would  not be placed so earlly in the war, but this was just months in. No-one could have imagined the four years which would follow.

 I`ve done some daft things in my life and two of them are:- a) not buying the booklet I mentioned
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            b) Later  I wrote off for the booklet but what was sent was the war  diaries --- I returned them!!! not what I wanted--- see what I mean about daft! I`ll try to get them again. Cheerioand thanks again. Viktoria.

Offline Viktoria

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #37 on: Tuesday 09 December 14 23:09 GMT (UK) »
I`ve been off RootsChat, due to a bereavement, for some time. I was sorry to have missed H.A.B.St. George`s 100th annniversary. I was hoping my son would show me how to post his photograph but then thought - it is not for me to do,- there are family members who may object.

It would be interesting though if it could be posted. Viktoria.

Offline JBarry

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #38 on: Wednesday 10 December 14 17:57 GMT (UK) »
Hi Viktoria
I'm sorry to hear of your recent bereavement, There is an excellent web site named the Long Long Trail, Membership is free, under the members gallery you can see a group of portrait photographs which are from my collection, I posted them on his anniversary, I use the same membership name, Jbarry,

Regards
James

Offline Viktoria

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #39 on: Wednesday 10 December 14 20:16 GMT (UK) »
Thankyou James,I`ll have a go at that. Viktoria.


Offline Moratorium

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #40 on: Saturday 02 April 16 18:15 BST (UK) »
In answer to your original question, the St.George family descends from Baldwin St.George who was a Companion of William the Conqueror and invaded England with him in 1066 after which they settled at Hatley St.George. Before the conquest they lived at St.Georges near Limoges for centuries. Before that, history doesn't relate; the ark probably. They never achieved a huge title. There was a peerage, Lord St.George, in the eighteenth century but it went extinct after two generations. Nevertheless they are a grand and ancient family which in terms of breeding, with thirteen quartering a to their coat of arms, makes many dukes and lesser mortals look like parvenus. I recommend that those of you who are interested in the subject should beg,borrow or steal an old copy of Burke's or Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage. Writing a book about aristocrats without a Peerage at your elbow must have been like doing the crawl through treacle. The online versions are not yet reliable.

Despite the disparity in ages Avenel and I had a mutual friend. I knew Basil Hambrough in Kenya in the fifties where he was kind enough to propose me for the Muthaiga Club. He was a Grenadier who on the fatal morning visited his medical officer where he found Avenel waiting ahead of him. They had a long chat, Basil said it was all London gossip, before Avenel went in to the doctor. That was the last Basil saw of him and he told me Ave was shot in the throat by a sniper on the way back to his squadron. I have heard elsewhere that he made it back to the squadron and was killed on another mission late in the day. In either case I think we can be sure of the date and the sniper. It seems the latter gained quite a reputation as a sharpshooter.
                                   
Alas, you have missed out perhaps the most impressive feature of a tragically short life. At Eton Avenel was elected to Pop (The Eton Society). This club was and is about as selective as you can get, consisting of twenty self-elected members from a school of thirteen hundred with its own premises off Eton high street. Members were easily distinguished by their dress which allowed coloured waistcoats, high collars with white tie, sponge bag trousers, braided morning coats, floral buttonholes and furled umrellas. The common herd wore plain black morning coats since they went into mourning for King George IV and were not allowed to furl their gamps. However members were  far from mere dandies, having wide disciplinary powers. To enforce their rules they acted as prosecutor, jury, judge and executioner. The last involved a Pop Tanning, administered with a knobbly stick; much dreaded and far more painful than a mere Beating Up by a house captain with a cane or a Flogging by the head or lower master with a birch. Those about to be Pop Tanned were advised to wear their oldest trousers which would not be much use afterwards. I had tea with Sir Henry Marten at the Provost's lodge in 1947. All three St.George brothers were in his house and he clearly thought George was Pop material too but I have a feeling brothers were not allowed to join. For example Prince William was a member but not Prince Harry; Boris Johnson but not his very bright sibling; David Cameron's brother but not the Prime Minister. Thinking of PMs, when Harold Macmillan fired a number of his cabinet in "The Night of the Long Knives" it was said that he replaced half his friends from Pop with the other half.

So far as George St.George is concerned the notion that he fled to the USA is baloney. He was the firstborn grandson of the richest banker in America - richer than his friend and frequent partner J.P. Morgan by a factor of ten according to Forbes. George F. Baker founded the First National Bank of New York and the Harvard Business School among other things. Unsurprisingly George (aka Goga or Doodle, short for Yankee Doodle) was always destined for the U.S. On his twenty- first birthday in 1913 the old man gave him a million bucks and a coal company to ease him through this vale of tears. When war came he patriotically joined the U.S. Coastguard which was engaged in hunting U-Boats and even sent six coastguard cutters to Gibraltar to escort convoys to England. This does not square with the notion that his mother came over all lily livered about him. I knew her well and such behaviour would be out of character. He played rackets for Etonian and was a very entertaining fellow. To hear him speak you would take him for a Tuxedo toff; which is exactly what he was of course.

So far as Sir William Orpen was concerned, Mrs.St.George had her first three children in a space of five years. This was followed by a pause for refreshment lasting another thirteen after which she produced Ferris and Vivien, in under two,both of whom were remarkably smaller than the others (Howard St.George was a big man; Orpen tiny) with a strong facial resemblance to the good Sir William. Go figure.

I hope you have found this helpful.

Offline gallipolianzac

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #41 on: Monday 04 April 16 22:19 BST (UK) »
Hello

Do you have a name and what is your relationship to the family? If you had tea with Henry Marten in 1947 you must be quite old - how old are you exactly?

Jerry Murland
Co.Down: Murland
Sussex: Goode, Watts, Poole
Northamptonshire: Murland
East Yorkshire: Royle

Offline Moratorium

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Re: Howard Avenel Bligh St. George
« Reply #42 on: Friday 08 April 16 17:45 BST (UK) »
I did not want to give my name as I did not want to seem to swank about the St.George family from which my descent is decidedly iffy. However, this seems to have turned into a bit of a family forum and, having Googled you Jerry (respeck, b'wana, respeck and apologies if I was a bit acerbic - I was not amused by the treatment given to George St.George of which more later) I have decided to blow my own gaff. I am Vivien St.George's only son; my name is Antony Stanley Clarke and I am eighty one. The reason for my tea with Sir Henry Marten, by then Provost of Eton, when I was twelve was a typically Etonian cock-up. Although I had been entered at birth for Jacques's house, when the time came he had let my place go. My father being dead Vivien pulled rank as sister of George, Avenel and Ferris complaining to Sir Henry who invited us both to tea. He must have liked the cut of my jib because he got me into Wickham's house chop-chop. A friend told my mother that she should have sent Jacques a case of port every Christmas. I don't believe this but it makes a good yarn. A nice link to the past is that Sir Henry used to cross the river to Windsor,starting in 1938, to teach Princess Elizabeth constitutional history. Thus Avenel shared a tutor with our present monarch who liveth yet.

Orpen (aka Woppy) was through his mother Howard St.George's first cousin once removed. This was close but no cigar in terms of looks. It is the same relationship as I enjoyed with both Rhodie and Pony Duke, George St.George's grandson, but neither looked remotely like me; they were both handsome lads. Woppy must have had very strong genes. I was sitting at a Sothebey's auction a few years ago with my brain in neutral and my mouth agape, just as Woppy used to portray himself in his private drawings, when a total stranger tapped me on the shoulder to ask if anyone had told me I looked exactly like Orpen. Sadly Pony bought the farm very recently, only a year or two younger than me. Buying the farm is American slang. If you know it, skip the following; otherwise it might entertain a military historian like you, Jerry. In WW1 American country boys would take out government backed life insurance. If they died or were shot their families would use the proceeds to
redeem their mortgages. Hence the expression, which I rather like.

My suggestion of consulting Burke's or Debrett's was really for your benefit, Viktoria. It is indeed a complicated family. I use a 1938 Burke's. This is a huge volume and the family takes up over a page and a half of tiny weeny type but tells you all you need to know. It might be worth trying your local library but take a magnifying glass. It would have told Rhodie about Uncle George and Jerry about Uncle Ferris for instance. A word of caution; a St.George family has become prominent both on the English racing scene and the political scene in the Bahamas. They are highly liked and respected but hail from Malta and changed their name from Zimmerman.Can't understand the fellers.

Jerry, you asked about their houses. After Ashorne Mrs. St.George bought Coombe in Surrey which earlier belonged to Lord Palmerston. After that she bought Cam House, Campden Hill in London and The Priory in the Isle of Wight as a country retreat. Howard St.George was not in evidence and I cannot recall meeting him although I saw Granny almost every day; but they never divorced. To my great displeasure one of the clever-dick online "Peerages" describes my mother (but not Ferris) as having been born out of wedlock; but I am too old and ill to take issue with the scum. James, as a barrister you might like to have a go. But I digress. The Priory is now an hotel and an excruciatingly expensive one. It owns Priory Bay which I remember well with its huge and magnificent private sandy beach. One year a freak storm washed away the whole caboodle and Granny simply had another one trucked in. God bless America.

Cam was something else. It's site is now occupied by The Holland Park School. Cam was previously Argyll Lodge, London home of the Dukes of Argyll and before that Bedford Lodge, home of the Dukes of Bedford. It was pretty big. After Wyatville added the West wing in the early nineteenth century it was valued for rates higher than Holland House. I was born at Cam and Granny died there; not cause and effect I hope. I can tell you much more on request but I am drivelling off the subject.

James 57 you seem to have got into the habit of working up mental fantasies, some of them quite barmy, which you then produce as matters of fact. I am used to this and aim off accordingly but to post your drivel here, as with Mrs. St.George's alleged behaviour towards her son at the beginning of the war, could cause serious damage. This forum kicked off with Jerry Murland, a well known military historian, undertaking research on Uncle Avenel. If he had quoted you in good faith in a book, then he, not you, would have got it in the neck from the likes of me. Pray ponder and don't do it again.

Antony