Lord Camoys
BREMENMURRAY
Richard R
Lord Camoys, banker who became the first Roman Catholic Lord Chamberlain since the Reformation – obituary
He had a torrid time as founding chief executive of the investment banking arm of Barclays and in palace circles was an advocate of change
By Telegraph Obituaries 4 January 2023 • 4:49pm
The 7th Lord Camoys, who has died aged 82, was a City banker who became Lord Chamberlain at an acutely sensitive time in the modern evolution of the monarchy.
Camoys succeeded the 13th Earl of Airlie as head of the Royal Household in January 1998...
Ralph Thomas Campion George Sherman Stonor was born on April 16 1940. His third name commemorated Edmund Campion, one of the recusant Catholic priests who took refuge at Stonor Park during the Elizabethan persecutions; Sherman was the surname of his American grandmother.
The barony descends from Sir Thomas de Camoys, KG, who commanded the left wing of the English army at Agincourt. The title went into abeyance in 1426, but was revived in 1839 in favour of the descendants of one of Sir Thomas’s grand-daughters.
Young Tom’s father, the 6th baron, Major Sherman Stonor, was a rumbunctious, hard-drinking character who staved off bankruptcy by progressively selling the contents of Stonor Park, the part-medieval, part-Tudor, part-18th-century house near Henley which has been in continuous occupation by the Stonors since before the Norman conquest – making it the oldest family home in England.
Tom was educated at Eton and Balliol. Between the two he was despatched by the Foreign Office to Nepal as tutor to Crown Prince (later King) Birendra and, were it not for the family’s shortage of cash, he would have been a natural for a career in diplomacy. Having taken a Third in History, he was recruited instead into Rothschilds, by David Colville (brother of Jock), the bank’s first non-family partner.
…By 1976, meanwhile, Stonor family relations had deteriorated badly. Having auctioned off the last sticks of furniture at Stonor Park, the 6th baron put the house itself on the market, while refusing an offer for it from Tom. The dispute was only resolved by Sherman’s death, after which Tom (by now the 7th Baron Camoys) was able to buy the house from the trustees, re-furnish it and open it to the public.
Relations between Tom and his mother, who lived in a dower house at Stonor with her exotic younger son Bobby, remained strained for many years, though they were reconciled before her death.
… In the House of Lords he was a member of the EEC select committee from 1979 to 1981. He was also a member of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England and the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, a steward of the Leander Club at Henley and Prime Warden of the Fishmongers Company.
Camoy’s connections with the Royal family began through friendship with the Duke of Gloucester’s family, and later with the Duke and Duchess of Kent, whose country home at Nettlebed was close to Stonor. The Duchess of Kent made public her conversion to Roman Catholicism by taking Mass in Camoy’s private chapel. Camoys own appointment in 1992 as a Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen was confirmation that his position as a leading Roman Catholic layman was no obstacle to Royal service. He served as Lord Chamberlain of the United Kingdom until 2000, when he retired due to ill health.
He was appointed GCVO in 1998, and a Privy Counsellor in the same year. He was a “consultor” to the Patrimony of the Holy See from 1991 to 2006 when he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Papal Order of St Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI. He was also a deputy lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and he remained a close friend and adviser to King Birendra of Nepal, who awarded him the Order of Gorkha Dakshina Bahu in 1981, until the King’s assassination in 2001.
…He married, in 1966, Elizabeth (Beth), daughter of Sir William Hyde-Parker, 11th Bt, of Long Melford in Suffolk. They had a son, Ralph William Robert-Thompson Stonor, who was born in 1974 and inherits the barony, and three daughters.
Lord Camoys, born April 16 1940, died January 4 2023
sven_me...@web.de
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Robert Jewell
rich...@googlemail.com
Exotic appears to be a polite way of saying he was very gay and “camp” .
Richard R
Richard R
Obit in the Times of 9 Jan 2023:
E X T R A C T
Lord Camoys obituary
Managing director of Barclays Merchant Bank who became the first Catholic head of the royal household since the Reformation
Though Lord Camoys was the first Roman Catholic to head the Queen’s household since the Reformation, he lost no time in making his considerable presence felt and pushing through a swingeing modernisation.
…Camoys became lord chamberlain in January 1998 as successor to the Earl of Airlie. His task was to continue the reforms, to make the royal household more open and transparent, that had been started by Airlie… Camoys went deeper and implemented changes faster… after what was perceived to be the royal family’s inadequate response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997.
…by the time he was forced by ill health to retire as lord chamberlain after little more than two years in the post, he had implemented the policy of increasing media access to Queen Elizabeth II’s working life…
…Camoys’ growing status in royal circles had been confirmed when he was appointed a lord in waiting in 1992. There was precedence as his ancestors had been lords in waiting to Queen Victoria — despite the fact that earlier members of his family had over the centuries been imprisoned or penalised for their faith. He had first come to royal attention through his close friendship with Prince William of Gloucester, Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin. He later became near neighbours in Oxfordshire with the Duke and Duchess of Kent. After Katharine, Duchess of Kent, was received into the Catholic Church in 1994, she announced her decision in public by attending Mass at Lord Camoys’ private chapel.
Ralph Thomas Campion George Sherman Stonor was born in 1940 to Major Sherman Stonor, the 6th Lord Camoys, and Mary Jeanne (née Stourton). Known as Tom, he was educated at Eton and in 1976 inherited a title that dates back to 1264, went into abeyance in 1426 and was called out of abeyance in 1839. One of his ancestors commanded the left flank at Agincourt in 1415.
…Stonor Park, part medieval, part Tudor and modified in the 18th century, is said to have been in the possession of the same family for longer than any other house in England. Keeping it within the family was an important motivation in Tom Stonor’s life…
…the now 7th Baron Camoys, who was not mentioned in his father’s will, bought it from the executors, along with most of the family portraits and the library with its important collection of Catholic books. He opened it to the public for the first time in 1979…
…Camoys [wasn’t] on the best of terms with his eccentric elder sister, Julia, who claimed that his title was rightfully hers by barony of writ…
…He was appointed GCVO in 1998 and a papal knight in 2006.
Camoys is survived by his wife, Elisabeth (née Hyde Parker) along with their daughters, Alina, Emily and Sophie, and their son Ralph William Robert-Thompson Stoner, who inherits the barony…
Lord Camoys, banker and former lord chamberlain, was born on April 16, 1940. He died on January 4, 2023, aged 82
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lord-camoys-obituary-rf7zqcmws
colinp
Barony of Camoys in the Peerage of England The Lord Chancellor reported that Ralph William Robert Thomas Stonor had established his claim to the Barony of Camoys in the Peerage of England. The Clerk of the Parliaments was accordingly directed to enter Lord Camoys on the register of hereditary peers maintained under Standing Order 9(4).