Baron Gisborough
Cheryl Nicol
It has been suggested that this little anecdote about my 3rd cousin Richard Long, might be of interest to the group.
A second son, Richard was not destined to inherit his father’s estates, which went to his elder brother Walter, the 1st Viscount Long.
His nephew Rob Long told the romantic story that “Uncle Dick” had married young and impetuously to a beautiful but penniless girl, and all they had to live on was his pay as a subaltern in the Carabineers.
One day in 1888 when they were living in garrison with the rest of his regiment, he was notified of his aunt’s death in Yorkshire, and was requested to attend the funeral.
Somehow young Dick Long managed to find the money for the rail tickets, travelling third class – unheard of for an officer in those days.
After the funeral they were asked to attend the reading of the will, whereupon to his great astonishment, he suddenly found himself heir to the 71-bedroom Gisborough Hall and an income of about £30,000 a year – on condition he change his last name to Chaloner, same as his aunt’s. (The Chaloner family had owned the Guisborough estates since 1558.)
No argument from him on that score, and he became known thereafter as Richard Goldolphin Walmesley Long Chaloner.
That beautiful, penniless girl he had married was the daughter of the Rev. Weston Brocklesby-Davis. She later became Baroness Gisborough when Dick was raised to the peerage as Baron Gisborough in 1917.
This is one of many backstories behind the history from my book Inheriting the Earth: The Long Family’s 500 Year Reign in Wiltshire. Available from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1906978379/
Informative, impressive and praiseworthy – The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine.
