Hugh John Montgomery-Massingberd (1946-2007)

[Michael Rhodes]

Hugh Massinberd (aka Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd), author/journalist,
who died 25 December, 2007, aged 60, was scion of the Montgomery-
Massingberd LG family of Gunby, was sometime obituaries editor of the
Daily Telegraph. He also edited Burke's Landed Gentry (Volumes II and
III, 1969 and 1972) the Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage (1970
edition), & sometimes it appeared that he knew those weighty volumes
almost by heart. He was b 30 Dec 1946, the only son of John Michael
Montgomery-Massingberd, of Gunby, Lincolnshire (see Viscount Hawarden,
Debrett's 1928 edition). His books included : The Monarchy (1979); The
British Aristocracy (with Mark Bence-Jones, 1979); The London Ritz
(with David Watkin, 1980); The Country Life Book of Royal Palaces,
Castles and Homes (with Patrick Montague-Smith, 1981); Diana - The
Princess of Wales (1982); Heritage of Royal Britain (1983); Royal
Palaces of Europe (1984); Blenheim Revisited (1985); Her Majesty The
Queen (1986); Debrett's Great British Families (1987); The Field Book
of Country Houses and their Owners: Family Seats of the British Isles
(1988); four books with photographs by Christopher Simon Sykes - Great
Houses of England and Wales (1994), Great Houses of Scotland (1997),
Great Houses of Ireland (1999) and English Manor Houses (2001); Queen
Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1999); and the autobiographical Daydream
Believer: Confessions of a Hero-Worshipper (2001). He married (i)
first, in 1972 (dissolved 1979), Christine Martinoni; they had a
daughter and a son. He married secondly, in 1983, (Dorothy) Caroline
Ripley b 1947, dau of Sir Hugh Ripley, 4th Baronet (1916-2003), by his
1st wife Dorothy Mary Dunlop, dau of J.C. Bruce Jones (Dunlop Bart).

Michael Rhodes

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[Shinjinee]

Even more interestingly, his father John Montgomery-Massingberd (named
changed 1963 when he inherited Gunby from his aunt Dana, nee Diana
Massingberd) was a son of Major-General Hugh Maude de Fellenberg
Montgomery of Blessingbourne, and a younger brother of Peter Stephen
Montgomery of Blessingbourne. However, the estate passed to a cousin
Captain Robert Lowry, now of Blessingbourne, instead of to Hugh, to
his great disappointment per the obits. Lowry was apparently training
to be a farmer and was felt to be a better choice to inherit and
revive the estate. Like his uncle (or great-uncle), Lowry was Vice
Lieutenant of the county. Unlike that relative, he has married and
fathered at least one son Nicholas (md to Colleen) and one daughter
(Joanna whose engagement was announced 2004).

Major-General Hugh Maude de Fellenberg Montgomery was son of Major-
General Hugh de Fellenberg Montgomery. I don't have the Montgomery of
Blessingbourne records around, but PRONI has some information on the
family. I don't how how the family is connected with the Montgomerys
of Alamein, but this branch appeared quite liberal in the Victorian
period.

More information on the Massingberds is available here and there. I
peeked into Ruvingny's Clarence volume (online) but John and his
brother Peter had not been born. I assume that the Monsignor Hugh
Montgomery living in the 1960s was the son born in 1895.

Shinjinee

[Michael Rhodes]

His son is Luke, his daughter Harriet. He leaves a grandson, Jack.

[JonnyK]

Blessingbourne is located near Fivemiletown in the Clogher Valley,
County Tyrone and itself has an interesting history. The estate was
purchased in 1731 by Colonel Margetson Armar (d 1773), High Sheriff of
County Fermanagh in 1742, whose wife Mary Corry was the daughter of
Colonel John Corry of Castle Coole (1666-1726). From what I can gather
Colonel Armar ran the estate for his father-in-law and left his own
land in Fermanagh to his wife's sister, Sarah. Sarah Corry married
Galbraith Lowry (1740-1802), who changed his name to Lowry-Corry after
their marriage and their eldest son was Armar Lowry-Corry, 1st Earl of
Belmore, who inherited the collected Armar, Lowry and Corry lands and
built the classical mansion which is at Castle Coole today.

Back to Blessingbourne, after Colonel Armar's death the estate became
the property of his nephew, Hugh Montgomery, who began to build the
nucleus of the town of Fivemiletown as it exists today, and continued
by his son, Colonel Montgomery. But when he died in 1838, it fell to
his grandson, Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery - the great-grandfather of
Captain Robert Lowry who lives to-day at Blessingbourne - who took up
residence in 1870.

The big house at Blessingbourne as it is now was designed by the
English architect Pepys Cockerell in 1875. A locally run website
states that Hugh de F's wife, Mary Montgomery, who was a daughter of
the Dean of Enniskillen, together with Cockerell reputedly designed
the Roman Catholic Church near the estate, the site having been given
by the family even though they were Church of Ireland followers, which
fits neatly with the liberalism on land issues that Shinjinee refers
to and can be further looked into in any good book on Irish land
history in that period.