Illegitimate Culme-Seymour baronetcy scion

[Henry W]

Some fun had this afternoon working out what was going on in the Culme-Seymour family. I thought I would post it in case anybody else was similarly situated:

Today in the Telegraph (placed by Unknown)

TRIVELLI

On 18th February 2019, to Matilda (née Culme-Seymour) and Joseph Trivelli, a son, Peto Emery, a brother for Elsa and Orlando.

There were previous announcements for Orlando Jack (born 2016) and Elsa Peto (born 2013), both placed by Mrs Bennett.  No engagement announcement is immediately obvious to me.  The mother's maiden name is quite unusual, and so I assumed she was a scion of the baronetcy of that name, but could not locate her within it's collaterals.  A search of the group shows me that Michael Rhodes had a similar problem with a Rupert CULME-SEYMOUR in 2006.

What I have found by working backwards:

Matilda May CULME-SEYMOUR, born 1981  Q3, Westminster, mother's maiden name: PETO BENNET (Ancestry has mis-transcribed - check original image or FreeBMD)

I initially thought she was a progeny of the marriage between Keith SEYMOUR and Christine A PETO, 1977 Q4, Sutton, however more searching discounts this. Another probable children of this marriage:

Georgina Elizabeth CULME-SEYMOUR, born 1979 Q3, Westminster, mother's maiden name BENNETT

When I search for her in the Telegraph, there is an engagement:

Mr J.H.Q. McNeilly and Miss G.E. Culme-Seymour

The engagement is announced between James, son of Dr and Mrs Harry McNeilly, of Coleshill, Buckinghamshire, and Georgina, daughter of Mark Culme-Seymour, of West Bexington, Dorset, and Caroline Culme-Seymour, of Kensington, London.

Last updated 8 years ago

Placed by Georgine Culme-Seymour

This is then followed by announcements for 3 children, the eldest of which was placed by "Mrs Bennett".

I then found a marriage:

Mark A CULME-SEYMOUR and Caroline E P BARROW, 1978 Q4, Kensington

A check of thepeerage gives: Mark Anthony CULME-SEYMOUR, born 1942, illegitimate son of Angela Mary CULME-SEYMOUR and Robert HEWER-HEWITT.

Angela Mary CULME-SEYMOUR (1912-2012) is the aunt of Sir Michael CULME-SEYMOUR, 6th Baronet, and had been married 4 times (none of them to HEWER-HEWITT).

Still not sure about Caroline BARROW/BENNETT/PETO BENNETT ... is she the "Mrs Bennett" placing some announcements?

[G. Willis]

Hello Henry, 

With a little digging I found a book by Tilly Culme-Seymour, 'Island Summers', which can be viewed in part here- https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/chapter_sampler - and here- https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TfA_AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=Olga+Agatha+Laura+Olsen&source=bl&ots=VKcmCkDGIv&sig=ACfU3U3UOjlbGNGsW0XwuSTmbowhj4mZ7A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi4zNTXrOTgAhUHTBUIHQKjAxUQ6AEwB3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=CUlme&f=false

The book is about her family's Norwegian background, that coming from her maternal grandmother, Olga Agatha Laura (1913-1985), dau. of Fritz Sigurd Olsen, of a shipping family. She married Charles Bennett, son of Charles Bennett, a timber merchant, for whom he worked, and in the course of which employment he visited Norway where he met his future wife. They lived at Chapel Farm, Buckinghamshire; Caroline was born in 1942, with elder siblings Anne and Christopher. The book is dedicated to 'Caroline Elizabeth Peto Bennett'.

The author mentions her birth in 1981, the fact that her name is actually 'Matilda', and the following with regard to her parentage:

'I stayed in Cheshire with a quiet, elderly couple... this same couple had taken on, from Mamma's first marriage to Simon Barrow: Thomas, only boy; Sasha, eldest girl; Emmeline, middle girl; and Rebecca, youngest girl. From Mamma's second marriage to my father, Mark Culme-Seymour, in December 1978, there was only my elder full sister, Georgina, or 'Dordie', and me.'

Mark Culme-Seymour, based on company records showing him alongside a Caroline Elizabeth Peto Culme-Seymour, is Mark Anthony, b. 1942, whose ancestry you have already identified. So all your conclusions I would say are correct!

[G. Willis]

Also, just as a note- the Wikipedia article for Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross states: 'In 1938, he married Angela Mary Culme-Seymour (1912-2012), daughter of George Culme-Seymour and Janet (née Orr-Ewing) and former wife of the artist John Spencer-Churchill. Having been separated by World War II when Balfour was posted to Cairo, she started a five-year relationship with Major Robert Hewer-Hewitt by whom she had two sons, Mark and Johnny. Patrick and Angela were divorced in 1942.' This is sourced from Angela Culme-Seymour's Telegraph obituary- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9060216/Angela-Culme-Seymour.html

[G. Willis]

Sorry- one more thing I came across:

Assuming the 'Peto' might have been part of a compound surname, I searched for 'Charles Peto Bennett', and found on thepeerage (sourced from BP 2003) a Charles Peto Bennett, of La Haute, Fliquet, Jersey, who married Fru Farnes (from Oslo, this constituting a useful piece of corroboration in my book) and had a daughter, Anne Christine, who married in 1962, Sir Richard Baker Wilbraham, 8th Bt. I suspect this Charles Peto Bennett was the father also of Caroline (as above); the book by Tilly Culme-Seymour mentions the divorce of her grandparents, so he presumably remarried. Interestingly, the book details her grandmother's remarriage, to Lars Farnes; as Caroline had an elder sister Anne (given Caroline's birth in 1942, her elder sister would have been of the right age to marry in 1962 [also, I erred in saying Caroline had two elder siblings- she was born secondly, after Anne]), I wonder if Burke's 2003 somehow misrepresented the information? Apparently 'Fru' means 'Mrs' and is a polite way to refer to a woman (in Swedish, thus presumably also in Norwegian?), so it'd be strange for a Norwegian woman to be so named (and very coincidental in that it's the same surname as her grandmother subsequently came to possess!).

I wonder if Caroline (and Anne)'s mother, who was subsequently 'Fru Farnes', was simply not given her personal name in Burke's (the information being perhaps taken from, for example, an announcement, where she would naturally have been referred to by her second married name) and this marriage of Charles Peto Bennett and Fru Farnes represents the marriage of Charles (Peto) Bennett and Olga Agatha Laura (née Olsen). I think on the evidence this is the case, barring some extreme coincidence!

[G. Willis]

ONE last post(!) on the subject- an interesting account of these families, showing the Peto Bennett family's Norwegian connections, here: https://ratty.com.au/southern-cross-pearlback-from-long-exile/ (go to about halfway down) 

[G. Willis]

Yes, another post in this thread...

Tilly Culme-Seymour's book mentions her father's first marriage, and the two children therefrom: the 1966 marriage record for Mark A. Culme-Seymour and Sally C. V. Robins and the births in 1967 of Katharine Mary and 1969 of Rupert Sebastian clear up the mystery you mentioned in your first post, Henry. Also, later in the book she refers to her grandmother's 'favourite granddaughter', her cousin Sibella, that being the eldest daughter of Anne Christine Peto Bennett and Sir Richard Baker Wilbraham, 8th Bt, removing any doubt, I should say, with regard to the relationships mentioned in my last post but one.

And finally- an interesting account of the life of Mark Culme-Seymour, here: http://viewfromonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/view-profile-mark-culme-seymour.html