7th Baron Brabourne, CBE (1924-2005) film producer
Michael Rhodes
of Thames Television, 1975-93 (Chairman 1990-93), died at his home in
Kent, Friday 23 September, 2005. He was aged 80.
Lord Brabourne was a son-in-law of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and a
survivor of the IRA bomb which killed Mountbatten, and Brabourne's
mother and son, and others, at Mullaghmore, Ireland, in August, 1979.
John Ulick Knatchbull was born 9 November, 1924, son of the 5th Baron
Brabourne (1895-1939) by his wife Lady Doreen Geraldine Browne (Order
of the Crown of India; DStJ), daughter of the 6th Marquess of Sligo,
and was educated at Eton and Oxford.
He succeeded to the barony (UK 1880) and the Baronetcy (England 1641),
on the demise of his elder brother, the 6th peer, 15 September, 1943.
The elder brother, Norton, was shot by the Nazis after he had escaped
from a prison train in Italy and was recaputred.
He married 26 Oct, 1946, Lady Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten,
elder daughter of Admiral of the Fleet the 1st Earl Mountbatten of
Burma, KG, PC, OM, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO. His wife succeeded to
her father's peerages under the terms of the special remainder, 27 Aug,
1979.
Films produced (as John Brabourne): Harry Black (1958); Sink the
Bismarck! (1959); HMS Defiant (1961); Othello (1965); The Mikado
(1966); Romeo and Juliet: Up the Junction (1967); Dance of DEath
(1968); Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971); Murder on the Orient Express
(1974); Death on the Nile (1978); Stories from the Flying Trunk (1979);
The Mirror Crack'd (1979); Evil Under the Sun (1982); A Passage to
India (1984); Little Dorrit (1987), &c.
Lord Brabourne is survived by his wife, Countess Mountbatten, and by
four sons and two daughters. The fourth of his five sons, Nicholas,
died in the IRA outrage, 1979.
He is succeeded in the peerage and baronetcy by his eldest son, Norton
Louis Philip Knatchbull (a godson of the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen
Louise of Sweden), who has been styled Baron Romsey since 1979. He was
b. 8 Oct, 1947.
Source: BBC News
Michael Rhodes
> The 7th Baron Brabourne, CBE, film and television producer., Director
> of Thames Television, 1975-93 (Chairman 1990-93), died at his home in
> Kent, Friday 23 September, 2005. He was aged 80.
The Press Association reports that he died yesterday, Thursday 22
September, 2005.
***
Louis Epstein
: The 7th Baron Brabourne, CBE, film and television producer., Director
: of Thames Television, 1975-93 (Chairman 1990-93), died at his home in
: Kent, Friday 23 September, 2005. He was aged 80.
:
: Lord Brabourne was a son-in-law of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and a
: survivor of the IRA bomb which killed Mountbatten, and Brabourne's
: mother and son, and others, at Mullaghmore, Ireland, in August, 1979.
: He married 26 Oct, 1946, Lady Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten,
: elder daughter of Admiral of the Fleet the 1st Earl Mountbatten of
: Burma, KG, PC, OM, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO. His wife succeeded to
: her father's peerages under the terms of the special remainder, 27 Aug,
: 1979.
[snip]
: Lord Brabourne is survived by his wife, Countess Mountbatten, and by
: four sons and two daughters. The fourth of his five sons, Nicholas,
: died in the IRA outrage, 1979.
:
: He is succeeded in the peerage and baronetcy by his eldest son, Norton
: Louis Philip Knatchbull (a godson of the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen
: Louise of Sweden), who has been styled Baron Romsey since 1979. He was
: b. 8 Oct, 1947.
As his son has now become Lord Brabourne,and this title was
created well before that of Romsey (1947)...can we expect that
Lord Brabourne will be the courtesy title of future heirs to
the Earldom of Mountbatten once the titles have merged?
In the meantime are there any other holders of substantive
peerages who are next in line to other substantive peerages?
(I think Lord Lansdowne to the Barony of Sandys...I know a
number of peers are close in succession to titles held by
other branches of their families).
Briefly,in 1971-72,the Baron Beaumont (who had succeeded his
mother) was heir apparent to his father the Baron Howard of
Glossop,who was heir presumptive to the Duke of Norfolk...
I am not aware of any other occurrence of substantive peer
next in line to substantive peer next in line to substantive
peer!
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
cj.b...@virgin.net
Louis Epstein wrote:
> In alt.obituaries Michael Rhodes <migx73all...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Admiral of the Fleet the 1st Earl Mountbatten of
> : Burma, KG, PC, OM, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO.
OM follows GCB and doesn't precede it.
Michael Rhodes
Very naughty of Burke's Peerage!
--
Michael Rhodes
<<Daily Telegraph Filed: 24/09/2005>>
The 7th Lord Brabourne, who has died aged 80, was, under the name John
Brabourne, a film producer whose credits included Sink the Bismarck!
(1960), Death on the Nile (1978) and A Passage to India (1984); married
for almost 60 years to Countess Mountbatten of Burma, the daughter of
Earl Mountbatten, Brabourne was on board the fishing boat that was
blown up off the west coast of Ireland by an IRA bomb in 1979, killing
his father-in-law, his mother and his son, Nicholas Knatchbull.
The tragedy, which also killed a local boy and left Brabourne, his wife
and Nicholas's twin brother, Timothy, seriously injured, had a
devastating impact on his family. But Brabourne and his wife were
determined that the Mountbatten name would not forever be associated
with tragedy, and they devoted the years after the bombing to restoring
peace, hope and certainty to their family.
John Ulick Knatchbull was born on November 9 1924 in Bombay, a year
after his father, the 5th Baron Brabourne, was appointed Governor of
the city. In 1938 the 5th Lord Brabourne spent four months as India's
youngest Viceroy, and young John would later become the son-in-law of
the last Viceroy. Descended from Richard Knatchbull, "a roving
nobleman" who had settled in Kent in 1485, John Knatchbull's father
died in 1940, two years after being appointed Governor of Bengal, and
was succeeded by John's elder brother, Norton.
Until he was 10, John spoke Hindi as fluently as English. He was then
sent to England to be educated at Eton, followed by Oxford. During the
latter part of the war he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards
and returned to India as ADC, first to General Slim, then to Admiral
Viscount Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, SE Asia.
It was during this period that he first encountered Patricia, the elder
of Mountbatten's two daughters, who was serving as a Wren; he would
later recall that he "fell totally under her spell". But in 1943, John
Knatchbull's brother, the 6th Lord Brabourne, was shot by the Germans
after escaping from a prison train in northern Italy, and Knatchbull
succeeded to the peerage. Three years later, at a ceremony at Romsey
Abbey, attended by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, it was as
Captain Lord Brabourne that he married Patricia Mountbatten.
The Daily Telegraph described how the bride, attended by Princess
Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, wore a golden gown; the King proposed
the health of the couple with his glass charged with sherry, and
"laughed uproariously at the jokes of the bridegroom". There was also a
breathless description of the 600 employees of the Mountbatten estate,
all of whom attended the reception at Crossfield Hall, Romsey:
"Farmers, ghillies, woodsmen, dairymaids, gamekeepers, gardeners, polo
pony stable boys, labourers were all assembled there." The marriage was
to endure under unimaginable pressures, and the couple remained devoted
to the end.
In 1958 Brabourne produced Harry Black and the Tiger, an action
melodrama starring Stewart Granger as a hunter called upon to track
down a Bengal tiger that has been menacing an Indian village. This was
followed by Sink the Bismarck!, the true story of the Royal Navy's
search for a German warship. At that time, Lord Mountbatten was Chief
of the Defence Staff, a position which was said to have helped
Brabourne achieve both authenticity and the full co-operation of the
Admiralty.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Brabourne produced several films based on
Agatha Christie's detective novels. Star-studded ensemble pictures,
they are now regarded as classics of the genre, particularly Death on
the Nile, which starred Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Mia
Farrow, Angela Lansbury, David Niven and Maggie Smith, to name but a
few.
In 1957, during the production of Harry Black, Brabourne had bought a
copy of EM Forster's novel A Passage to India to while away the long
journey to Mysore, where filming was taking place. After reading it, he
realised, he later recalled, that this was "the film I really wanted to
make", and upon his return to London he wrote several letters to
Forster. In 1961 the two men met, although no formal agreement was ever
made.
Forster died in 1970, but King's College, Cambridge, which owned the
rights to all Forster's books, took a dim view of the film world. For
10 years Brabourne wrote an annual letter to the Provost, until he was
finally told that the rights were available. The subsequent film,
directed by David Lean, was a meticulous and epic study of the tensions
between the Indians and the colonial British in the 1920s. It won two
Oscars, and earned nine other Oscar nominations - Brabourne was
nominated for Best Picture.
Although he went on to produce several other films, the devastation of
his family and his own injuries in the IRA attack, inevitably had an
impact on Brabourne's career. The 50 lb device, which had been set off
by remote control by two members of the Provisional IRA on the cliffs
above the shore at Mullaghmore, had been placed underneath the boat's
steering wheel, below Mountbatten's feet. Brabourne and his wife
suffered broken legs and lacerated skin, while Tim Knatchbull nearly
died.
The family did not return to Classiebawn Castle, Co Sligo, where the
Mountbattens had taken holidays for 35 years, although they harboured
no bitterness and bore no grudges. In 1998 Thomas McMahon, the man who
made and planted the bomb, was freed from prison as part of that year's
Ulster peace agreement.
After her father's death, Brabourne's wife inherited her father's title
courtesy of an arcane First World War law which stated that if a
general or admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could pass,
for one generation only, to a daughter.
In 1960 Brabourne was appointed deputy chairman, under the chairman
Viscount Slim, of British Home Entertainment, which introduced
coin-in-the-slot television. Four years later, under Brabourne's
chairmanship, Pay-TV (a precursor to the pay-per-view television of
today) gave direct reception of the Cassius Clay-Henry Cooper boxing
match to several thousand viewers in London.
Brabourne subsequently went on to become a director of Thames
Television from 1975 to 1993 and its chairman between 1990 and 1993.
That same year he was appointed CBE.
He rarely spoke publicly about the bombing, but last year he and his
wife gave a substantial sum of money towards the endowment of a bursary
in Nicholas's name at the Dragon prep school in Oxford, which has been
associated with the Mountbatten family for 50 years. Shortly before the
launch of a public appeal to raise money for the award, Lady
Mountbatten spoke about the tragedy, and its effect on her family. "The
past 25 years," she said, "would have been far more difficult without
my husband. In fact it would have been unbearably ghastly. We have been
married a long time, but I dare say that if we had a spare lunch or
dinner and had to pick one person, we'd still choose each other."
Latterly, Lord Brabourne and his wife led a peaceful existence at their
comfortable 18th-century family house, Newhouse (so-called because it
post-dated the Knatchbulls' nearby ancestral home), in Kent. There they
delighted in the company of their children and grandchildren.
Lord Brabourne died on Thursday with his wife and six children at his
bedside. His son, Lord Romsey, succeeds to the peerage.
cj.b...@virgin.net
and decorations are concerned!
bx...@yahoo.com
Louis Epstein
:
: <<Daily Telegraph Filed: 24/09/2005>>
:
:
: After her father's death, Brabourne's wife inherited her father's title
: courtesy of an arcane First World War law which stated that if a
: general or admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could pass,
: for one generation only, to a daughter.
Earldom,not an application of a statute covering peers' occupations?
Michael Rhodes
Louis Epstein wrote:
> In alt.obituaries Michael Rhodes <migx73all...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> : <<Lord Brabourne>>
> :
> : <<Daily Telegraph Filed: 24/09/2005>>
> :
> :
> : After her father's death, Brabourne's wife inherited her father's title
> : courtesy of an arcane First World War law which stated that if a
> : general or admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could pass,
> : for one generation only, to a daughter.
In a recent interview Countess Mountbatten also told a reporter that
she succeeded to tbhe peerage because of this WW1 ruling, when in fact
she succeeded because of the special remainder of circa 1946.
--
Michael Rhodes
September 22nd 2005 at home surrounded by his beloved wife Patricia and
6 loving children. Funeral, 3 p.m., Friday, September 30th at Mersham
Parish Church, near Ashford, Kent. Car parking by 2 p.m. at
Mersham-le-Hatch for minibus shuttle to church, and back for reception.
Parking at church for elderly and disabled only. Details from The
Secretary 01233 503636 or b...@knatchbull.com or www.lordbrabourne.com.
Donations, in lieu of flowers, to The Caldecott Foundation, Mersham,
Kent TN25 6SP. Service of Thanksgiving in London to be announced.
Source: Daily Telegraph 27 Sept, 2005
***
Gary Holtzman
> Louis Epstein wrote:
> > In alt.obituaries Michael Rhodes <migx73all...@yahoo.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> > : <<Lord Brabourne>>
> > : <<Daily Telegraph Filed: 24/09/2005>>
> > : After her father's death, Brabourne's wife inherited her father's
> > : title courtesy of an arcane First World War law which stated that if
> > : a general or admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could
> > : pass, for one generation only, to a daughter.
>
> In a recent interview Countess Mountbatten also told a reporter that
> she succeeded to tbhe peerage because of this WW1 ruling, when in fact
> she succeeded because of the special remainder of circa 1946.
Presumably, then, the Countess herself was the source of the Telegraph's
misinformation. Hard to blame the journalist when the source whom one would
naturally expect to be in the best position to know, in fact, does not.
--
Gary Holtzman
Change "macnospam.com" to "mac.com" to email.
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Michael Rhodes
> Presumably, then, the Countess herself was the source of the Telegraph's
> misinformation. Hard to blame the journalist when the source whom one would
> naturally expect to be in the best position to know, in fact, does not.
>
> --
> Gary Holtzman
Speaking of her father to Sarah Oliver in the Mail on Sunday (6 June
2004) Countess Mountbatten said: '"He was a marvellous man, he was
human and he had his faults but we were uncommonly close and I am proud
to bear his title"....She became Countess Mountbatten of Burma courtesy
of an arcane First World War law which stated that if a general or
admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could pass, for one
generation only, to a daughter....'
Which First World War commanders were given special remainders to
peerages allowing the succession of a daughter of the male line failed?
I know that after WWII some of the heroes from that conflict were so
honoured, viz: - Portal of Hungerford, and then Mountbatten himself,
but who else?
I think Mountbatten himself used the precedent of
Michael Rhodes
remainders granted to Marlborough and Nelson to justify his own special
remainder granted in 1947.
Michael Rhodes
peerages:-
(i) Norton Louis Philip Knatchbull, 8th Baron Brabourne, b. 8 Oct 1947
(ii) The Hon. Nicholas Louis Charles Norton Knatchbull, b. 15 May 1981
(iii) The Hon Michael-John Ulick Knatchbull, b. 24 May 1950
(iv) The Hon Philip Wyndham Ashley Knatchbull, b. 2 Dec 1961
(v) Frederick Michael Hubert Knatchbull, b. 6 June 2003
(vi) The Hon Timothy Nicholas Sean Knatchbull, b. 18 Nov 1964
(vii) Milo Columbus John Knatchbull, b. 26 Feb 2001
(viii) Ludo Knatchbull, b. 15 September 2003
(ix) The Lady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks, b. 19 Apr 1929
(x) Mr Ashley Louis David Hicks, b. 18 July 1963
***
Charlene
Michael Rhodes wrote:
> The first 10 in line to the Mountbatten of Burma (and Brabourne)
> peerages:-
>
> (i) Norton Louis Philip Knatchbull, 8th Baron Brabourne, b. 8 Oct 1947
> (ii) The Hon. Nicholas Louis Charles Norton Knatchbull, b. 15 May 1981
Is the Hon. Nicholas now styled Lord Romney?
wd41
Michael Rhodes
No. Nicholas remains 'The Hon Nicholas' until his father succeeds as
3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Then he will have the choice of courtesy
titles - and Brabourne (created 1880) is senior to ROMSEY by almost 70
years and would be the most likely choice.
***
Uwe
Is there any other branch of the Knatchbull family in remainder to the
Brabourne peerage or a baronetcy?
Michael Rhodes
Uwe wrote:
> For the Brabourne peerage #9+10 are not in line, I assume.
> Is there any other branch of the Knatchbull family in remainder to the
> Brabourne peerage or a baronetcy?
Correct. Only the male line descendants of the 7th Baron are in line to
his peerage & baronetcy. If (however unlikely) the male line
descendants of the 7th peer and Countess Mountbatten fail, then the
Brabourne peerage would go to male line descendants of the 1st Baron
(who have assumed the surname Knatchbull-Hugessen.
They are:-
Kenneth Norton Knatchbull-Hugessen, b. 1949, resident at Ontario,
Canada. married to Karen Wolff, father of a son Arlo Edward, b. 1970.
***
Andrew John Knatchbull-Hugessen, of Quebec, Canada, b. 1926, married
with 2 sons, Brian (b. 1954) and John (b. 1958)
***
His Honour James Cornelius Knatchbull-Hugessen, b. 1933 (brother of
Andrew above), of Ottawa, Canada, a Puisine Judge of the Federal Court
of Appeal of Canada, married with 3 sons, Jaime (b. 1959), Alexander
(b. 1965), Ross Adrian (b. 1969).
****
Patrick Cracroft-Brennan
And if you want to be correct, PC should come at the end as it is a
description eather than an honour.
Patrick Cracroft-Brennan FCA HonFHS
Director - Heraldic Media Limited
http://www.heraldicmedia.com
Publishers of "Cracroft's Peerage"
The complete guide to the British Peerage
http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk
Patrick Cracroft-Brennan
wrote:
>In alt.obituaries Michael Rhodes <migx73all...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>: <<Lord Brabourne>>
>:
>: <<Daily Telegraph Filed: 24/09/2005>>
>:
>:
>: After her father's death, Brabourne's wife inherited her father's title
>: courtesy of an arcane First World War law which stated that if a
>: general or admiral was lost without a male heir, his title could pass,
>: for one generation only, to a daughter.
>
>Surely it's an explicit provision of the patent of creation of the
>Earldom,not an application of a statute covering peers' occupations?
>
As Louis has pointed out there's no such law.
Michael Rhodes
place on 15 November, 2005, at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks,
at 3pm.
See:-