UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Arthur Edward Copland-Griffiths

Arthur Edward was born on 6th March 1844, 10 days before his mother Lucy's 41st birthday but 7 days after the death of his older brother, Frederick Charles Blakeney, who never reached his second birthday.

Like his uncles, Alexander, William and Francis, he was educated at Eton but unlike his uncles he went on to Oxford, gaining an MA from Wadham College in 1870.

Three years later, on 21st June 1873, he married Marian Helen Caillard (known as Nellie), daughter of Judge Camille Felix Désiré Caillard of Wingfield House near Trowbridge, Wiltshire and Emma Louisa, daughter of the banker Vincent Stuckey Reynolds.

Camille’s mother Seraphine had fled to England with him as a child when his father Camille Timothée became embroiled in French politics. Emma Louisa’s mother Marian, née Basevi, was the first cousin to Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister, later Lord Beaconsfield.

It is worth noting at this point that several years after Emma Louisa’s death in 1865, Judge Caillard married Amy Ursula, the widow of Captain John Hanham and daughter of Alexander Copland, Lucy's older brother. The family tree becomes even more complicated when we add the fact that Nellie's eldest brother, Vincent Henry Penalver Caillard, married the daughter of his father's second wife, Eliza Frances (known as Lily) Hanham whose mother was Amy Ursula.

Arthur Edward and Nellie had a very fruitful marriage. Not only were they devoted to each other, but they produced three sons and five daughters. Tragically, at the age of 44 Nellie was suddenly struck by sepsis and died on 13th July 1898, having kept secret a puncture wound from a safety pin in the nether regions. They had enjoyed a rich social life together and he found it difficult to cope with his loss, became a recluse and died, broken hearted, within 4 years.

It was left to Nellie's eldest sister, the spinster Emma Marie Caillard (Marie) then aged 45, a scientist, author and “blue stocking”, to take over responsibility for bringing up her youngest nephews and nieces, who went to live with her at Wingfield House, Judge Caillard had died four months earlier, whereupon Vincent and Lily took over responsibility for Wingfield House. Although he spent a fortune creating gardens and updating the house with a music room to satisfy his passion for organ music, his business and international political interests often led to long absences.

He received a knighthood in 1896 and several Ottoman honours for his work as a financier and President of the Ottoman Debt Council representing England, Holland and Belgium in Constantinople , but his interest in engineering led to him chairing Vickers, which constructed ships and aircraft, and along with questionable dealings in the Arms Trade with characters like Sir Basil Zaharoff, he has been credited for ensuring Britain had access to armaments at the start of and during the Great War.

Whilst Lily took on the management of Wingfield House, her sister-in-law Marie now took on responsibility for Esmond, then 13, Kathleen, known as Stella aged 11, Helen Inez aged 8 and Felix Alexander Vincent aged 4.

The French Connection:

Marian Lucy: Arthur Edward’s eldest daughter Marian Lucy, nicknamed Weetie, (born 29th October 1875) was quickly married off to Antonin Bernard from a suitable French Protestant family that year, reputedly because of a certain indiscretion. She became a very beloved and devoted mother to their 4 sons and 2 daughters, and the French dynasty of Bernard-Griffiths was born. Below is Esmond Copland-Griffiths (left) with his nephew Charles Bernard Griffiths (Right) on one of Charles’s regular visits to his English family or, as the French family would rather say, to their “cousins du pays de galles”, honouring their Welsh ancestry. Charles was to join the French Resistance during the Vichy Regime and German Occupation.

Charles was their fourth son. His older brothers were Daniel, Jacques and Camille and his two sisters were Lydie and Helène (Ninette), who remained spinsters. Jacques died young, but Daniel, Camille and Charles married and produced children and grand children. Daniel’s children were Annie and Roland, Camille’s were Jacques (father to Sylvie & Thierry), Pierre (father to Vincent, Aude & Christien), Jean (father to Maude, Christine, Pierre Emanuel, Laurent & Anne) and Yves (father to Gaelle), and Charles ‘s children were Evelyn, Jacqueline (mother to Sylvie Bessou & Jean Charles Bessou) and Edouard (father of Claire). For many years the family would gather together during Pâques (Easter), sometimes enjoying the hospitality of the Carayon Family at Fonte Couverte, Provence, from where Charles’s wife Yvette Carayon hailed and where family members still sometimes gather today.

The younger Daughters:

Alice Désirée: Arthur Edward and Nellie’s third child, Alice Désirée (Désirée), was born on 14th January 1878. She was an accomplished painter and sculptor, in her lifetime exhibiting at the Grosvenor Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Royal Academy and the Society of Women Artists. On 15 February 1898 she married Sir Alfred Welby, 3rd son of Sir Glynne Earle Welby-Gregory, 3rd Baronet. Whilst he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Scots Greys Alfred was awarded the Order of St Anne of Russia in 1895 and in May the following year attended the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, two months later retiring from the army to spend more time in British politics as a Conservative politician. After several unsuccessful attempts to win in Liberal constituencies he was finally elected M.P. for Taunton, which he held from 1895 to 1906, when he stood down, and after failing to secure a London seat in 1906, the following year he was elected as a member of the London County Council for East Finsbury, which he held until 1910. During the Great War he was Secretary of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation after which he was appointed a Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.).

Whilst supporting her husband in his political career, Désirée continued to develop her portraiture, sculpting people of prominence mainly in marble and bronze. Her bronze & marble bust of Sir Cecil Harcourt-Smith, Director and Secretary of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1909 and 1924, is normally displayed in the National Art Library Reading Room, along with busts of other former Directors of the Museum. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O311524/sir-cecil-harcourt-smith-lld-bust-welby-desiree-lady/

Below is a marble head of the British novelist and short story writer, Theodora Benson, which has remained in the family

An example of her work in bronze is the bust of Viscount Cave, sculpted in his Chancellor of the University of Oxford robes, presented to the University in 1924 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1928.

Sadly, her bronze Corpus Christi, the figure of Christ on the Cross which was the focus of the Wingfield War memorial commissioned by Sir Vincent and Lady (Lily) Caillard and consecrated by the Bishop of Salisbury on 29th October 1917, was stolen and melted down on 28th February 2014.

Désirée continued sculpting actively until the death of her husband in 1937, when her output declined. She died on 27 February 1969. Their first child, Helen Cicely Desirée, born in 1898 died a child at 3½ years of age. Amyse Mary was born in 1900 and married Captain Geoffrey Whitaker and they had one daughter Camilla, who has three children, and an adopted daughter Talia. Their son, Rannulf Alfred Earle (known as “Bunny” in the family), was born in 1902 and married Margery. Desirée Ann Eda followed in 1904 and married Gerald Richard de Capell Brooke Guinness, having three children.

Marie Laura: Marie, born on 18th December 1880 and known as “Trickie” in the family retained a passion for animal welfare during her lifetime, supporting numerous charities. She retained her good looks by gently tapping creams into her face and chin every morning, a fond and happy memory of the author’s, her Great Nephew, from her stays in Wingfield with the family. It was said that she remained unmarried because there was insufficient dowry in the family coffers to find a suitable match for her social status, but there may have been another reason, perhaps a matter of the heart. She was certainly well connected in managing difficult social situations, having arranged for her cousin, Emma Esmah Magdalen Caillard (Esmah), to discreetly move to London in 1917, on the surface to continue nursing in but in effect to arrange the quiet birth and adoption of her illegitimate daughter Rosemary to a distinguished baronet and his wife, who were childless.

Kathleen Wilma (known as Stella in the family) was born on 20th September 1889 and like many of the young women who formed the majority of their generation after the carnage of the Great War she remained a spinster. However, this changed at the age of 44 when she married John Hayward Home, who was considerably younger than her, and they moved to Hove. He died in 1945 and little is known of her after this date.

Helen Inez, (Inez) was born on 17th September 1890 and in 1921 married Raymond Leuchars. They had two sons, Peter and Edgar. Peter followed his Uncle Vincent (see below) in the Welsh Guards. He gained the rank of Major-General and was appointed Bailiff Grand Cross, Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (G.C.St.J.) He was appointed Commander, Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.). Both Peter and Edgar have had children.

Frederick Arthur Vincent Copland Copland-Griffiths (Fred)

Arthur Edward’s first son, Frederick Arthur Vincent Copland Copland Griffiths (known as Fred) married Veronica Hibbert in 1909 and they spent most of their life at Vence, in Alpes-Maritimes, France. Fred was known for being a stickler for accuracy and for maintaining a pristine attire, reputedly spending several hours a day perfecting his personal appearance and carefully clipping his moustaches. He carried this intensity forward into his passion for genealogical research and, being a member of the Royal Society of Genealogists, spent years tracing his great grandmother Lucy Giffard's ancestry back to Osbern de Bolebec, cousin to the Duke of Normandy and father of Osbern Giffard who had accompanied William the Conqueror across the Channel and fought at his side at the Battle of Hastings. Fred also laid to rest the belief that the Griffiths's were descended from the Welsh princes** , having to draw a line at the parentage of his forefather, John Griffith of Cil-y-llyn, when the evidence failed to materialise. On the Copland side the claim that his ancestry hailed directly from Sir John Copland, who had captured King David of Scotland at the battle of Nevilles Cross in 1346 losing his teeth to the King’s gauntlet in the process, could also not be substantiated.

** Since publication evidence has appeared that Blanche Price, wife of Richard Griffiths (and daughter-in-law of John Griffith of Cil-y-llyn) was descended from Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, Prince of Powys, died 1111, so it may be this link that provided the source of the claim of Princely heritage).

Fred fled Vichy France on a coal boat in 1942, which the family suspected was quite a challenge to his fastidious nature. In 1944, as a witness to his nephew Charles Copland-Griffiths’s marriage to Mary Fry (Esmah’s daughter and Sir Vincent Caillard’s granddaughter) his insistence for accuracy led to him calling the Rector and all signatories to the marriage certificate together the following day, in the midst of war, to correct an error of omission. The Rector had omitted his brother Esmond's second name “Copland” and Fred left no stone unturned to ensure that the marriage certificate should record the groom’s father as Esmond Copland Copland-Griffiths. This repetition of the name Copland also applied to his own full name, Frederick Arthur Vincent Copland Copland-Griffiths. This anomaly came about when he and his two younger brothers, Esmond and Vincent, were granted the surname Copland-Griffiths by Royal License on 19th August 1905, following their late father, Arthur Edward, who had assumed the additional surname on 11th October 1894. This was to ensure that the Copland name survived following the death of Amy Ursula’s brother, Alexander Lester Copland, on 23rd February 1869 when the male line had become extinct. Fred also ensured that the Family’s coat of arms was drawn up and registered to include the Copland’s heraldic “three nags heads” above the Griffiths’s rampant lion sinister.

Fred died at his home in Vence, Alpes Maritimes, France on 1st March 1950, not having had any children.

Felix Alexander Vincent Copland-Griffiths (Vincent)

Vincent was the youngest child of Arthur Edward and Nellie. At the age of four his mother died and his heartbroken father withdrew and became a recluse, leaving him in the care of his spinster aunt Marie Caillard at Wingfield House. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge from where he immediately enlisted in the Rifle Brigade at the outbreak of the Great War, receiving his commission as a Second Lieutenant after training. He volunteered and was transferred to the Welsh Guards as one of its founding Officers in 1915 and was soon promoted to Lieutenant. He followed the Welsh Guards throughout their battle engagements and was wounded in the Battalion’s first Battle at Loos, the “first Blood” of the Regiment.

Page 34 of the History of the Welsh Guards by C H Dudley Ward records on 27 September 1915: “Copland-Griffiths describes a tornado, a monsoon, something fearful in the nature of a storm going on just over his head as he lay flat on the ground, and a bullet ripped him straight down the back so that he tried to lie flatter” … Of the officers in his company (Company 2) “Copland-Griffiths was the only one hit, and he was determined to hang on” (Page 36) disengaging on the 29th when he was taken to hospital. In early November he returned to Company 2 and it appears that he and the commanding officer of Company 4, Rupert Lewis, made so much fuss about returning to the front that they avoided being sent home on leave: “ Copland-Griffiths and Rupert Lewis rejoined from hospital, and for ever after each accused the other of having been too warlike while in hospital and ruined every chanced of a few weeks’ leave at home” (page 50). Vincent went on to follow his Regiment and fight at the Battles of Flers-Courcelette and Morval in 1916, the German retreat to the Hindenburg and the battles of Pilkem, Menin Road, Poelkapelle, Passchendaele (1st battle) and Cambrai in 1917 and the battles St Quentin, Bapaume, Arras (1st battle), Albert, Bapaume (2nd battle), Havrincourt, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, Selle (pursuit and battle) and the Sambre. He received the Military Cross for Bravery in King George V’s Birthday Honours of 1917 and was “Mentioned in Despatches” in the same year, as “one whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command in which his or her gallant or meritorious action in the face of the enemy is described”. Vincent bore the Welsh Guards’ Regimental Colours in the Triumphal March through Paris on 14th July 1919. He remained a professional soldier until he retired as Brigadier in 1947, having commanded the first Battalion between 1938-40 and the First Brigade up to 1943, when he led his men in the North Africa campaign. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1940 and in 1943 spent a year with the British Army Staff in Washington, USA, where he liaised with General Eisenhower in the build up to the Normandy Invasion. On retirement he held a number of posts, including Lord High Sheriff of Hereford in 1955.

On 17th July 1922 Vincent married Hon. Ursula Mary Ethel Devereux, youngest daughter of 17th Viscount Hereford, whose charitable work with the Order of St John led to her appointment as Dame Grand Cross, overseeing the Order across the globe and being awarded Dame of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (1st Class). She died on 12th August 1957 and in 1962 Vincent married Maud Wishart Wigan (née McKelvie), who was to outlive him, as she had her previous two husbands. Like his elder brother Fred, Vincent was to have no children, leaving their middle brother Esmond to carry on the Copland-Griffiths name.

Esmond Copland Copland-Griffiths

Esmond was 13 when his mother died and that year, 1898, he was sent to Clifton College, Bristol, where he excelled in rugby and cricket. His holidays were spent at Wingfield House in the care of his aunt, Marie Caillard, who also cared for his younger brother and sisters. In 1904 he was enrolled at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and took up a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the 16th (the Queen’s) Lancers the following year where he honed his shooting skills, helping his squadron to win the inter-squadron Challenge Shield. In 1908-09 he was seconded to the Kings African Camel Corps (Rifles) and found himself in Kismayo, the capital of Jubaland. His diary makes interesting reading but peters out when, on a mission in the bush, he succumbed to pyaemia. Before the advent of antibiotics pyaemia was almost always fatal. Unsurprisingly available medicines failed to help and, it is said, that at death’s door he only rallied when his demand for a tin of smoked salmon was satisfied. His health never fully recovered and the effects of his illness dogged him for the rest of his life, but in 1910 he was fit enough to join the School of Musketry at Hythe. The following year he was sent to instruct at the Cavalry School at Netheravon, after which he was appointed to duties in Trafalgar Square at the Coronation of King George V. In 1912 he was sent to Wigan to keep the peace during the first nationwide Coal strike, which was thankfully resolved when the Government passed the Coal Mines Act, satisfying the miners’ demand for a minimum wage. Immediately after this he was sent to Norwich to help organise the Military Tournament as its Assistant General Manager.

Later that year, on 29th September, he announced his engagement to Arundel Theophila (“Offie”) Gwatkin and set out for the United States and Canada on leave for two months. She carefully preserved his letters from North America and on return, at the very end of the year, he took up his appointment in the Curragh, Ireland. He and Offie were married on April 12th 1913 at St Peters, Eaton Square, London. He was promoted to the (acting) rank of Captain as Adjutant to the Montgomery Yeomanry and they set up their first home in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

On 20th March 1914 Esmond joined several other officers when he resigned his commission in protest at the Government’s intention to devolve government to the whole of Ireland. Known as the Curragh incident, or, by some, “The Curragh Mutiny”, this was probably the first incident since the Civil War that elements of the army intervened in politics. The British Cabinet was contemplating military action against the Ulster Volunteers, who were threatening rebellion, and he and his fellow officers feared they would be ordered to fire upon their comrades should hostilities break out. Succumbing to this pressure, the Government explained that it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding, whereupon the rebels once more took up their commissions and Esmond returned to his work as Adjutant.

At the outbreak of war Esmond was sent to the East Coast, first to Blickling Hall, Norfolk to train new recruits and then in 1916 to Cromer. In March he sailed with the Troopship Arcadia to Egypt with the Montgomery Yeomanry. Returning home in June at the expiry of his adjutants’ job he rejoined his regiment, the 16th Lancers, in France, but was invalided home in April 1917, a few weeks after the birth of his son Frederick Charles Brandling (Charles), a younger brother to his sister Arundel Helen (Helen), who had been born on 27th January 1914. The family was joined by Theophila Joan (Joan) on 6th August 1919 and, after completing posts in Otham and East Farleigh, Kent, he retired from the 16th Lancers with the rank of Major and they moved to Langley, and later, in 1927, to Windsor. His father-in-law, Joshua Reynolds Gascoigne Gwatkin (Gascoigne) died in 1939 and, as Offie’s brother Robert Torrington Gwatkin had died in 1917, she had become the sole heir to the Gwatkin estate, which included the Manor House, Potterne, Devizes. Esmond and his family moved to the Manor House and stayed there until 1942, when they moved to the centre of the village whilst the Manor House and grounds were used to billet soldiers. In 1940 he commanded the Potterne Home Guard Platoon and in January 1943 he was appointed Company Commander, D Company, Devizes, until stand down at the end of the war. In civilian life he was President of the Devizes British Legion (1939-45), Home Guard Old Comrades Association and the Territorial Club and was a member of the Wiltshire County Rifle Association Council. The Copland-Griffiths Cup is still awarded for marksmanship in a local Rifle Club. As a member of the Copland family he retained an interest in Albany (founded by Alexander Copland) and remained a trustee for over 30 years, 9 years as its Chairman. Other interests were on the Potterne Parish Council, the Council of the Wiltshire Association for Care of the Blind, President of the Potterne Amateur Dramatic Society and Football Club and Chairman of the local Unionist Association.

Arundel Helen: Esmond and Offie’s eldest child, Helen, tragically died young of lymphoma at the age of 23.

Theophila Joan: Their youngest, Joan, grew to be a talented and accomplished artist. She married a young American officer and attorney-at-law, Richard Oexmann, in 1944 and at the end of the war she emigrated to America, where she brought up their 5 children, Elizabeth Theophila (Toppy), Gertrude Ann (Trudy), James Bennett (JB), Mary Joan (her twin brother died at birth) and Henry. Trudy as mother of Tommy, and JB as father of Joan Margaret, Charles and Helen have continued the generations of those descended from Lucy Copland in the United States of America, with Charles the father of James, Oliver and Bennett and Tommy the father of Lincoln, Evelyn, Richard and Lucy (born 2020 and named after her Great-Great-Great-Great Grandmother, Lucy Copland).

When her children were old enough she took up her art studies again and gained her Masters Degree with a Dissertation on her ancestor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, from whose sister Molly her mother Offie had directly descended. Sadly she died very young on 25th May 1983, but her legacy continues with the biennial Oexmannn Awards, endowed by Richard, in recognition of her love of Britain’s artistic heritage. The competition is open to anyone born or living in Wiltshire both adults and young persons and is organised through the Wiltshire Museum, Devizes.

Frederick Charles Brandling Copland-Griffiths (Charles)

Born during the latter stages of the Great War (World War I), Charles’s father Esmond was invalided out from service with the 16th Lancers in France a few weeks later. Charles’s first ten years were spent at Langley near Slough, Berkshire and at the age of 8 he was sent to Selwyn House Preparatory (“prep”) school in Broadstairs, Kent, where he was noted for his scholastic abilities. He did not follow his father and uncle into the army but chose the Royal Navy, the military service of the King of the day, George V and his second son, later George VI.

At the age of 13 he was accepted into the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, the Navy’s initial officer training academy, where he again excelled academically and graduated as the youngest officer of his cohort. As an officer he trained in Gunnery and saw service with a number of ships before the 2nd World War. In 1939 he was a Gunnery officer on HMS Barham, a World War I Queen Elizabeth Class battleship built in 1914 which had participated at the Battle of Jutland and had often been used as a flagship.

Charles’s first military encounter was 23-25 September 1940 at the Battle of Dakar, Following the dropping of propaganda leaflets on Dakar and with Free French General Charles de Gaulle close at hand, Free French aircraft flew from the Aircraft Carrier HMS Ark Royal to Dakar airport to negotiate with the French Governor and persuade him to follow the example of French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon and join the allies. Failing that, the plan was for the Free French troops, backed by British and Commonwealth soldiers, to take the city by force. From the start things did not go well. The aircraft crews were taken prisoner, a boat with de Gaulle’s representatives was fired upon and allied ships were shelled from shore. Several exchanges of fire took place in which a French destroyer was breached. That afternoon Free French troops were landed but thick fog and heavy fire from strongpoints on the beach caused de Gaulle to declare he would not “shed the blood of Frenchmen for Frenchmen” and the assault was called off. During the next two days the allied fleet continued to attack in thick fog, the Barham engaged and struck a french battleship and disabled a submarine but was struck twice, a third shell exploding alongside with such force that the shockwave caused a seam below water level to separate and the ship took on water. On the final day severe torpedo damage to an allied battleship led to a rethink. The decision to call off the attack was taken with very little achieved, leaving two french submarines sunk and a french destroyer badly damaged. On the allied side several vessels needed to be repaired and HMS Barham towed the damaged battleship to Freetown where she herself was repaired before heading to Gibraltar. There she joined the Mediterranean fleet, ferrying troops to Malta, protecting convoys and engaging Italian destroyers with considerable success, having the benefit of radar which the Italians lacked. Covering the evacuation of Crete she was severely damaged by heavy bombs from German Junkers aircraft. She had to be sent through the Suez Canal for repairs in Mombasa and then on to Durban when the damage was found to be too great. Repairs competed by the end of July 1941 she returned to Alexandria to resume her role as flagship to the 1st Battle Squadron. Departing Alexandria on 24th November the Squadron, accompanied by an escort of eight destroyers, was set to provide cover for the 7th and 15th Cruiser Squadrons hunting Italian convoys in the central Mediterranean. The following morning their movement was detected by a German submarine, the U-331. By 4.15 in the afternoon the U-Boat had managed surreptitiously to slip in under the screen provided by the destroyers. Closing in on HMS Barham at 4.25pm she discharged four torpedoes at 375 metres into her side, creating such a massive water column when they exploded that she herself was blown upward to the surface. Being too close, the allied ships were unable to angle their guns down to strike back and she dived, disorientated, hitting 265 metres, way in excess of her design depth of 150 metres. In spite of this she was undamaged and she sped away, not knowing the outcome of the encounter. The huge water column caused by three torpedoes exploding instantaneously in the engine room threw the Barham onto her port side. At this very moment Charles and two other officers were coming up stairs onto deck for a breath of fresh air. He was thrown onto a wire and rope barrier on the port side, entangling and drawing him under the water as his colleagues scrambled upwards to starboard. Reaching the top the ship’s magazine exploded killing them instantaneously and Charles was blown upward and outward in a plume of oil and debris, far from any of his other shipmates. What was left of the ship disappeared below the waves at 4.28 pm

Due to the speed in which she sank, just over four minutes from torpedo strike, 862 officers and men were lost, including the Captain, Geoffrey Cooke. The destroyer HMS Hotspur retrieved 337 survivors, including two who later died of wounds, and the Australian destroyer, HMAS Nizam, saved 150. Being on his own in a mass of thick oil, Charles was not spotted at first. Two hours later he was seen by a destroyer which, disobeying orders to stop when there were U-boats about, took him on board and he was carried to Alexandria where he was hospitalised. Due to the massive loss of life in this, the first sinking of a Royal Naval Battleship in the War, HMS Barham’s demise was kept secret until 27 January 1942. It was then that the U-Boat Commander, von Tiesenhausen, was able to claim his kill.

YouTube has the Pathe News film of the destruction of HMS Barham, together with a fascinating interview with the cameraman, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St7WdjDgcSA . You can see the port side being drawn down under water and can imagine Charles, tangled in the barrier, going down with it before the massive explosion that carried him and a mass of debris far away from the ship.

Charles continued to serve throughout the war as a Lieutenant Commander on a number of ships, and well into peacetime, ending his time at sea on the aircraft carrier HMS Theseus.

In the early 1950s he was transferred to the Admiralty in Bath, specialising in gunnery and missile systems, which he did not particularly enjoy. He retired from the Navy in 1964 with a military M.B.E., which he received from H.M. the Queen at Buckingham Palace later that year, and bought Oldfield Landscape Gardeners in Bath, learning a new craft as a Garden designer.

He knew his wife-to-be from visits to Wingfield House in childhood. He and Mary Esmah Elizabeth Fry were second cousins, sharing the same Great grandfather, Judge Camille Felix Désiré Caillard. He was on leave in London where she was nursing and they resumed their acquaintance. They married on 14 April 1944.

Knowing that in all likelihood he would at some stage be posted to the Admiralty at Bath the perfect opportunity arose in 1950 for him to buy a property nearby that would not only provide him and Mary with a familiar home in Wingfield, with its happy memories for them both, but that would also be perfect for bringing up their two children, Michael Charles born in 1946 and Alexandra Mary (Alex) 1949.

Mary’s uncle, Bernard Penalver Caillard, had inherited the Wingfield Estate at Vincent’s death in 1930. He had married Hilda Blagrove Paton but tragically their only child, Margaret died in 1936, prompting them to turn the exceedingly spacious Wingfield House into a School for disadvantaged children to teach them trades and skills. They evicted the family that had rented nearby Trowle House for many years so they could move into a more manageable home. About that time the organ in the Wingfield House Music Room was donated to the village Church of St Mary, where its fine, beautiful tones continue to enrich worship today. The school failed and in 1939 all of Wingfield House and part of Trowle House was used to billet and train troops. When Hilda died in 1947 Bernard decided to put the whole of the Wingfield Estate on the market and it was bought by a developer, who divided Wingfield House into four residences and separated Trowle House and the farms into separate lots. When Charles was looking for a home he found that only Trowle House remained unsold and the family moved in at the end of the year, December 1950.

Having held a Christian faith since his childhood, reinforced by his miraculous escape from HMS Barham, he was one of the many who stood and proclaimed their faith at Billy Graham’s London Crusade in 1954. It was a faith that guided him throughout the remainder of his 90 years,although it is said that some of the villagers would hide when he called at the door to raise funds for some church or charitable event.

Probably Charles’s greatest community success was saving Wingfield Primary School from attempts to close it under Government’s policy of reducing small, supposedly uneconomic, village schools. Social changes had led to a decline in service for large houses and agriculture and Wingfield’s residents were no longer working in the village, which in the 1950s had a population of less than 300, rising to 321 by 2011. Instead of working at Wingfield House or for any of the local farms, families long associated with the village moved away to secure work, tied cottages were sold and a few new homes were built. As house values increased and an older, wealthier, generation moved in there were fewer young children to feed the school and several families with young children chose to educate them privately. Wingfield School had a reasonable teacher-student ratio and not many pupils but it maintained a fine reputation and children would come from nearby villages to keep the school alive. This was not enough for Wiltshire County Council, which earmarked it for closure. However, under Charles’s leadership, an array of petitions, continuous local press involvement and a mass placard-carrying march to County Hall in Trowbridge eventually saved the day. No longer a church school, it amalgamated with the Mead Primary School Academy group in 2009 and continues to grow from strength to strength today.

Although he was too reserved to state it, and probably too considerate of others’ feelings, he never once expressed any regret in having no grandchildren. Alex married at the age of 40 and Michael’s two marriages were childless. When Michael remarried at the age of 60 in November 2006 Charles had already suffered several strokes and was living in a nursing home. When the news broke in January that he might become a grandfather his spirit of determination revived and he steadfastly hung onto life. On 16th September 2007, with Alex at his bedside passing on news of what was happening at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, Maternity Unit, he would whisper back measured responses at what was happening at the birth of his grandchild. A complicated birth that day necessitated several days in hospital, but one week after the birth of his grandson, Alexander Charles, “Grandpa Charles” met the latest member of the Copland-Griffiths family bearing the most serene and contented expression imaginable.

From that moment on he retired into a state of unconsciousness and on 30th September his life slipped away. Mary lived on to welcome their second grandchild, Anna Victoria,who was born on 7th December 2010.

She bravely fought on against the painful physical effects of old age, remaining fully alert to world affairs, especially the Russian-Syrian coalition bombing of Aleppo which affected her strongly, having lived through the bombing of London in the War. Who could imagine that, having so fiercely expressed her disgust at the loss of civilian life in Aleppo on 27th September 2016, she would not be here 48 hours later. She died in hospital on 29th September, the day before the anniversary of Charles’s death. Uncannily, during the Suez crisis of 1956, she had looked out of her bedroom window onto the green fields of Wingfield and saw, not cows, but a vision of Russian tanks on the streets of Budapest. When a refugee camp was set up in a nearby village Mary took in a number of Hungarian refugees, 10 over the next few months, finding them work locally and quickly learning colloquial Hungarian. Over the next few months cooking at Trowle House adopted a classical Hungarian flavour and friendships were made that remain to this day.

Alexandra Mary: Alex spent much of her working life in the fashion industry based in London, working for a number of fashion houses, including Elizabeth & David Emanuel, Anoushka Hemple, Catherine Walker and others. On 24th February 1990 she married Stephen Lang at St Mary’s Church Wingfield.

They remained in London until 2006 when they moved to Bristol, where they still live, Stephen working as a Senior Research Nurse Specialist responsible for Cancer Trials at Bristol Royal Infirmary .

Michael Charles Copland-Griffiths

Born at home on 7th November 1946, with his father Charles at sea, Michael followed his parents and later his sister Alex through various naval postings, including a spell in Malta. Moving to Wingfield at the end of 1950 he started his education at Wingfield Church school, before being sent at the age of 8 to his father’s prep school, Selwyn House, Broadstairs, where he got off to a bad start. On the first day, not aware what the word “oik” meant but not liking the tone in which it was delivered, Michael pushed another new boy, who fell over. The headmaster clearly felt that such unruly aggression from a boy with a strong Wiltshire accent, picked up from idyllic days spent on Wingfield farms and the Wingfield School playground, upon an aristocrat of the Realm deserved a good caning. Upon passing his Common Entrance exams Michael was sent to Bradfield where Charles’s cousin Peter Leuchars (see above) had been educated.

Taking time off before reading History at Durham, Michael found himself traveling through Europe and then on to Syria and Jordan. There he spent time with a recently settled Bedouin group and learned the true meaning of hospitality. Falling sick with dysentery he shelved his plan to work his passage from Aquaba to Aden and sought help from the British High Commission. When the doors closed in front of him after queuing 3 hours and pleading his medical condition he was told to return 48 hours later after the weekend. His next memory was being carried by a young Palestinian to the hospital, where he saw the Doctor pay for his medication, and he found himself, recovering, in a Refugee Camp. There he met a young man his own age and discovered that the distorted scarring on his leg and body dated to 1947. His Uncle had found him under his mother’s dead body the morning after a Zionist gang had descended in the night on his village, razing it to the ground and slaughtering all its inhabitants. Needless to say, this challenged Michael’s received understanding of Middle East politics which was already coloured by the proportion of Jewish blood coursing through his veins. Determined to turn his back on repatriation he made his way to Aquaba, but boat after boat refused him. Remembering an invitation to work in Cyprus, offered when he passed through Athens, he made his way to Beirut, sold all that he had, arrived in only the clothes he stood up in and found his contact. He did get the job, selling English Encyclopaedias to Greeks who didn’t speak much English, but his heart wasn’t in  it and he was soon offered office work for a division of the British Printing Corporation. He was transferred to Athens where he set up and ran their delivery service throughout Greece just at the time the company was taken over by the infamous Robert Maxwell. Uncovering a financial scam and threatened locally with reprisals he went to the top, reporting directly to Maxwell, only to be fired on the spot. Sympathising with his plight, his immediate superior backdated a sales contract in Cyprus and he again found himself in Nicosia as an independent contractor. Spreading his wings, he set up a bookshop, translated German clothing pattern books into Greek, partnered with an ex-bodyguard of President Makarios in a debt collection agency and finally with him formed a furniture business, selling furniture throughout Cyprus to families building up dowries for their engaged daughters.

Various meetings, social and business, with members of the British High Commission made him realise that the Foreign Office was not the career for him. Trips to Beirut were leading him to diversify and work there but, once again, he found himself drawn to the Palestinian refugee Camps, this time to Chatila (site of a despicable massacre in 1982). Although some good friends were made in Chatila the atmosphere was darkening and he began to progressively feel unwelcome, ineffective and endangered.

A meeting a couple of years before with the inspirational Dr Dinos Ramon, who had newly arrived in Famagusta to set up a Chiropractic practice, changed his life. Over the following three years he developed a friendship with Dinos but never consciously ever thought that he would give up his businesses, return to England and spend four full-time years as a student.  That changed dramatically one night. Suddenly waking, alert, he found himself facing an orthodox icon of Christ, lit by an oil candle in a tiny alcove, to witness the severe, harsh lines of Christ’s brow faded away. In his mind was the conviction that a Chiropractor he would be.

Relying on some income from his Cyprus business interests he enrolled as a student at the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic (now AECC University College) as a 26-year-old mature student. Just before his first-year exams he had a totally irrational urge to return to Nicosia. Doing so he cashed in all the money collected by his Nicosia lawyer and, stuffing it in his pockets, he flew home. The next day the Turks invaded Cyprus. Michael paid off almost all of the British loan he had retained to develop his business. He was to learn later that his lawyer had absconded with his clients’ money.

Having helped to establish, develop and lead the Students’ Union, he graduated in 1977 with the Canadian Prize, awarded to the best “all-round student” of his year. He founded the “Wingfield Chiropractic Clinic”, worked as a locum for some of the great chiropractors of his day and took up a position at the AECC introducing first year students to palpation, analysing patients by observation, movement and touch.

Over the next four years other subjects were added, but his practice was expanding and he found himself, with some regret, drawn away from education to concentrate on developing his practices, now including one in Blandford, and taking on associate chiropractors, many of whom he had taught in their first year. He did find time to research and write Dynamic Chiropractic Today, one of the most comprehensive books on the profession worldwide, published by Thorsons in 1992.

Meanwhile his energies were becoming split between his practices and his profession. He joined the AECC College Council and British Chiropractic Association (BCA) Council in 1978. He was appointed BCA Registrar and Assistant Secretary in 1979, and in 1985 was elected President, spending the next two years restructuring, developing and encouraging new blood into the running of the Association.

Backing a colleague, who was leading the quest to see the profession regulated by Act of Parliament, he found himself from the early 1980s spending more and more time in London negotiating with Parliamentarians and Civil Servants. In 1994, a Private Members Bill by Rt Hon Sir David Lidington MP was passed as The Chiropractors Act. He chaired the Chiropractic Regulation Steering Group established to unify the profession, raise the preliminary funds, prepare Codes of Practice and Competence and establish agreed Educational Standards ready for the General Chiropractic Council to consider when appointed.

The designate Council was appointed by the Department of Health at the end of 1997, with Michael as one of its professional members. The Register opened in 1999, Michael was elected Chairman to a new Council in 2002 and he represented the profession’s interests on the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals (now the Professional Standards Authority).

Marrying Larysa Senyk, his third wife, in 2006 realigned his priorities. He resigned his professional interests to concentrate on his personal life, which he had largely neglected for 30 years to his own detriment. He sold his practices, Healthcare 2000 Clinics, in 2018 and now works part time for the new owner, Peter Dixon (his second associate and one of his old students from AECC days). This has freed him to do what has been a fulfilling passion for so many years, treating and witnessing the amazing results of chiropractic care without the burdens of running a business.

Selling Trowle House that year the family moved into a smaller, more manageable, property in the heart of Wingfield. Thinking he had a little extra time, he set to transcribing and researching his Great-Great Grandmother Lucy’s diary, which has become a rather too time-consuming passion and for which he has had to rely on the long-suffering tolerance of his wife Larysa and their children Sasha and Anna.