MOSLEY, Hon Ivo Adam Rex 1951-2024
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He was s of 3rd Baron RAVENSDALE MC 1923-2017 and his 1st w Rosemary Laura 1928-91 d of Air Marshal Sir John Maitland SALMOND GCB CMG CVO DSO 1881-1968 sometime head of that gentry family f/o Waterfoot and his 2nd w Hon Monica Margaret GRENFELL 1893-1973 d of 1st & only Baron DESBOROUGH 1855=1945 and Ethel Anna Priscilla 1867-1952 d of Hon Julian Henry Charles FANE 1827-70 s 11th Earl of WESTMORLAND 1784-1859 and Lady Adine Eliza Anne COWPER 1843-1868 d of 6th Earl COWPER 1806-56 and The Baroness LUCAS OF CRUDWELL 1806-1880 d of the 2nd Earl DE GREY OF WREST by his w a dau of 1st Earl of ENNISKILLEN 1748-1803, etc etc. He m 1977 Xanthe Jennifer Grenville b 1958 d of Sir Michael Bernard Grenville OPPENHEIMER 3rd Bt 1924-2020 and Laetitita Helen LUCAS-TOOTH 1926-2022 d of Sir Hugh Vere Huntly Duff MUNRO-LUCAS-TOOTH 1st Bt 1903-85 and Laetitia Florence 1903-78 d of Sir John Ritchie FINDLAY of Aberlour 1st Bt 1866-1930 and Harriet Jane 1880-1954 d of Sir Jonathan Edmund BACKHOUSE 1st Bt 1849-1918 and Florence 1845-1902 d of Sir John SALUSBURY-TRELAWYN 9th Bt 1816-85 and gd of Sir William LEMON 1st Bt 1748-1824, and had four sons as above.
The four grandchildren highlighted above are not identified in DPB online.
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For Ezra, Vita & Martha Mosley see: https://groups.google.com/g/peerage-news/c/zK9xMLWB2Ic
For Leo Mosley see: https://groups.google.com/g/peerage-news/c/vy5mJDXaD2s
colinp
Ivo Mosley, writer, ceramicist and vocal critic of his grandfather Sir Oswald Mosley – obituary
‘I don’t mind when people ask me about my surname. What does trouble me is when people say, “Your grandfather wasn’t really that bad”’
Ivo Mosley, who has died from motor neurone disease and dementia aged 72, was a grandson of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, of whom he was a vocal critic, and led a varied life as a ceramicist, poet, translator of Japanese poetry, journalist, playwright – and author of books ranging from political commentary to a short novel nominated for the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction award.
Ivo was the son of Nicholas Mosley, Sir Oswald’s eldest son by his first wife Cynthia, a daughter of Lord Curzon, the statesman and Viceroy of India. Nicholas became a distinguished writer but struggled with his father’s legacy, publishing a highly critical two-volume biography of him. Ivo did not meet his grandfather until his early teens…..
In 1976 Ivo was invited to attend the dinner for his grandfather’s 80th birthday. He was intending to turn the invitation down until friends persuaded him to go – for the benefit of history. During the evening he approached the old man and asked him what he was up to. “I’m waiting for the call,” Sir Oswald replied.
“What, the call of nature? The call of the wild?” asked Ivo. “No,” said Sir Oswald, “The call of the people. This country is descending into crisis. I will be required.”……..
Ivo Adam Rex Mosley was born in London on April 14 1951, the second son and second of four children of Nicholas Mosley (later Lord Ravensdale) by his first wife Rosemary, née Salmond. From Bryanston School he went up to New College, Oxford, to read Japanese…..
In 1977 he married Xanthe Oppenheimer, daughter of Sir Michael Oppenheimer, 3rd Bt, an artist and campaigner for the planting of street trees. She survives him with their four sons.
Ivo Mosley, born April 14 1951, died January 31 2024
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Obit in the Times of 2 April 2024:
E X T R A C T
Ivo Mosley obituary, creative spirit and public voice against his grandfather’s politics
Fun-loving ceramicist, poet, author and antithesis of his grandfather Oswald Mosley, the British Union of Fascists leader
Although he was an accomplished ceramicist, poet, translator and author, the first thing people tended to notice about Ivo Mosley was his surname. Was he related? Yes, Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, was indeed his grandfather. “I felt peculiarly lumped with the name Mosley,” he once said. When some people came across it “they thought I would be genetically evil”.
One response might have been to retreat into obscurity. Yet after realising the significance of his ancestry, Ivo Mosley decided to face it publicly, and use his abhorrence of his grandfather’s politics to inspire his own intellectual and cultural passions. “Having had a grandfather who was a real fascist, I’ve always felt I should stand up against it,” he stated. “Fascism is evil.”
This most difficult of inheritances complicated an already unsettled early life. He was born in 1951; his father was Nicholas Mosley, an artist who was the eldest son of Oswald from his first marriage to Lady Cynthia “Cimmie” Curzon; Oswald would go on to marry Diana Mitford in 1936 and have two more children, including Max Mosley…
Ivo’s mother was Rosemary Salmond. His parent’s marriage was not a success; both were remote, “difficult, quite selfish people”. Life in a large house with servants was sustained partly by his wife’s family occasionally selling off items from their art collection such as Rembrandts, but the atmosphere at home was, Ivo recalled, “quite austere. One cake a week and we’d fight to the death over it.”
…In 1977 Mosley married Xanthe Oppenheimer, an artist and founder of Street Trees for Living. They had four sons: Nat, who became an architect, Felix, a builder, Scipio, a musician and teacher, and Noah, a composer. All survive him.
…He suffered from periodic depression and had to face the cruel challenges of motor neurone disease and dementia towards the end of his life. Through it all, recalled his family, he retained a courageous serenity, insatiable curiosity and irrepressible good humour — delighting his children with a favourite rendition of the James Bond theme in the style of a chicken. Such moments marked a joyous contrast with the fraught family inheritance he had first encountered as a child.
Ivo Mosley, ceramicist, poet and author, was born on May 14, 1951. He died on January 31, 2024, aged 72