Donald Alexander Smith, 1820-1914 (GGG Grandfather)​

Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, fur trader, railroad financier, businessman, politician, diplomat and philanthropist. He was governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, president of the Bank of Montreal and high commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom amongst much else.

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Donald’s dreams and ambitions were shaped by his maternal uncles, Robert and John Stuart, who worked in Canada for the Hudson Bay Company. Their tales of adventure and excitement would lure him away from Scotland and his job in Watson’s legal firm in Forres near Inverness where he worked as a junior clerk. He joined Hudson Bay Company and left Britain on the 16th May 1838 aged 18, setting sail with a sense of anticipation, eagerness and hope.

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In Canada Donald was employed as an apprentice clerk by the Hudson Bay Company, becoming a clerk for the organisation in 1842. He was given administrative control over the seigneury of Mingan (in modern Labrador) in late 1843, where his innovative methods met with the disapproval of HBC governor Sir George Simpson. The Mingan post burned down in 1846, and Smith left for Montreal the following year. He returned in 1848, and remained in Labrador until the 1860s, administering the fur trade and salmon fishing within the region.

In 1862, Smith was promoted as the company's Chief Factor in charge of the Labrador district. He travelled to London in 1865, and made a favourable impression on the HBC's directors. In 1868, he was promoted to Commissioner of the Montreal department, managing the HBC's eastern operations. That same year, Smith joined with George Stephen, Richard Bladworth Angus, and Andrew Paton to establish the textile manufactory, Paton Manufacturing Company, in Sherbrooke. His talents were apparent to the company and he steadily rose through the ranks: 1855 he managed the district of Esqimaux; 1862 he became Chief Factor; 1871 Chief Commissioner; 1874 Land Commissioner and finally Governor of Hudson Bay Company in 1886.

 

Smith came to public attention in 1869 when he was sent to Fort Garry to help settle the terms of union between Louis Riel's provisional government and Canada. The mission was successful, and Smith began a political career, representing Winnipeg–St John in the Manitoba legislature 1870–74 and Selkirk in the House of Commons 1871–78. In 1874, when dual representation was abolished, he elected to sit in the Dominion Parliament.

 

Smith was an enthusiastic supporter of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and his financial backing was essential to its progress. He was therefore invited to drive the last spike when the railway was completed in 1885. Smith was also a principal shareholder and, in 1887, president of the Bank of Montreal, which was closely associated with the CPR.

 

In April 1896, Prime Minister Sir Mackenzie Bowell appointed Smith high commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom. He held this post, along with the HBC governorship, until his death. Smith became prominent in British public affairs and spokesman in London for the self-governing colonies. During the South African War he personally maintained Strathcona's Horse, a regiment of over 500 mounted riflemen which later became Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians).

 

In 1853, he married Isabella Sophia Hardisty, daughter of Richard Hardisty, Chief Trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Margaret Sutherland, daughter of the Rev. John Sutherland, a native of Caithness who lived at Lachine, Quebec. Lady Strathcona's father was a native of London, England, and her mother was of Indian and Scottish parentage. Her brother was the Hon. Richard Charles Hardisty. The couple lived at 53 Cadogan Square, London; Knebworth House; Debden Hall; Glencoe House, Scotland; Colonsay House, Scotland and 1157 Dorchester Street, in Montreal's Golden Square Mile. Lord and Lady Strathcona were the parents of one child, the Hon. Margaret Charlotte Smith. In accordance with the special remainder to the 1900 barony, she succeeded her father as Lady Strathcona in 1914. In 1888, she married Robert Jared Bliss Howard OBE FRCS (1859–1921), son of Robert Palmer Howard (1823–1889), Dean of Medicine at McGill University.

 

Smith was elevated to the peerage in 1897. King Edward VII called him "Uncle Donald”. During his lifetime, and including the bequests left after his death, he gave away just over $7.5 million-plus a further £1 million (not including private gifts and allowances) to a huge variety of charitable causes across Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. He personally raised Strathcona's Horse, who saw their first action in the Second Boer War. He funded the building of Leanchoil Hospital in his native Forres. He and his first cousin, Lord Mount Stephen, purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital. He endowed the Lord Strathcona Medal and donated generously to McGill University, Aberdeen University, the Victoria University of Manchester, Yale University, the Prince of Wales Hospital Fund and the Imperial Institute. At McGill, he started the Donalda Program for the purpose of providing higher education for Canadian women, building the Royal Victoria College on Sherbrooke Street for that purpose in 1886. He also built the Strathcona Medical Building at McGill and endowed its chairs in pathology and hygiene.

 

Strathcona died in 1914 in London and was buried at Highgate Cemetery. At his death his estate was valued at $5.5 million. His imposing red granite vault is the first vault after entering the Eastern Cemetery. His seventy-five-year tenure with the Hudson's Bay Company remains a record.

 

“With no advantage of birth or fortune he made himself one of the great outstanding figures of the Empire.” The Times of London

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Ferdinand von Miller 1813-1887 (4G Grandfather)

Ferdinand was the founder of a successful  family of German artists, administrators and engineers. He ran the royal Bavarian foundry, responsible in 1850 for the casting of what was then the largest ore cast in the world, the "Bavaria", an event which brought world renown to the foundry and the Kingdom of Bavaria. As a reward, the king raised the family to the hereditary nobility. 

 

The Royal Foundry in Munich was the leading world centre for bronze casting in the mid-nineteenth century. Located on the outskirts of the city, on the road leading to the Nymphenburg Palace the foundry was created by King Ludwig I of Bavaria (1786-1868), but was long associated with the name of its second director, Ferdinand von Miller who was born in Fuerstenfeldbrück, a small town not far from Munich, Ferdinand was the nephew  of Johann Baptist Stiglmaier (1791-1844), who was the first Inspector of the Royal Foundry from 1824 until his death. Stiglmaier travelled to Naples in 1817 to learn bronze casting and then returned to Munich to build the royal foundry, where young Ferdinand worked as an apprentice.

 

After a sojourn at the academy and a preliminary engagement at the royal brass foundry, he went to Paris in 1833, where he learnt from Soyer and Blus the varied technique necessary to him in the manipulation of bronze. He also visited England and the Netherlands, and after his return worked under his teacher and uncle Stiglmaier, whom the Crown Prince Ludwig had induced to devote himself to bronze foundry work and to the establishment of the Munich foundry as a state institution. Miller soon took his uncle's place, and upon the death of the latter was appointed inspector of the workshop. He soon won for it a world-wide reputation, and for himself a fortune and position of influence.

 

Ferdinand was a gifted artist, a quiet worker, skilful in negotiation and entirely a self-made man. The casting of the Bavaria, one of the world's greatest representations in bronze (1844-55), brought him worldwide fame. Commissions came to him from far and near. Thus he cast not merely the statues of Herder, Goethe, and Schiller for Weimar, but also the figures of Duke Eberhard in Stuttgart, of Berzelius in Stockholm and two Washington monuments by Mills and Crawford in Boston and Richmond. The gate of the capital in Washington (known as the Columbus or Rogers Doors) is also by him. The Munich exhibition of art and the art crafts in the year 1876, which resulted so successfully for the art industries in Germany, was largely Miller's work. Two years before he had been elected to the directorate of the society of art industries. He understood not only how to interest the influential classes in the productions of rising arts and crafts, but also to win over artists to a general exhibition of German art in alliance with the art handicrafts. As a result art became, especially in Munich, the mistress of industry. Miller forthwith established a centre of exhibition and sale for the society, and procured himself a home especially for the social intercourse of artists and art craftsmen. The result was an unexpected rise of the art industries. 

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When Ferdinand Junior followed in his father's footsteps, he became known in America for the figures on the Sinton fountain in Cincinnati (at the unveiling of which he was much honoured), as well as by the statues of Shakespeare and von Humboldt in St. Louis, and finally by the war memorial at Charleston. He also became director of the Munich Art Academy.

 

Ferdinand Junior’s brother, Oskar, an engineer, co-founded the Deutsches Museum in Munich, one of the greatest science and technology museums in the world. He was also "Reichsrat", legislative representative of the Crown of Bavaria, and a member of the peace delegation at Versailles in 1919 and his published works on the supply of energy to towns and cities remain standard works in their field. He built the first power station in Germany and it was on his initiative that the first projection planetarium was developed, enabling both the appearance and the motions of the fixed stars and the movements of the planets, sun and moon to be elucidated and explained. In 1933, a year before his death, Oskar commented on the newly formed National Socialist (Nazi) Government’ “This new government is like a soup with all sorts of tasty ingredients but with a dead mouse floating at the bottom, and that revolts me”.

 

Another brother, Wilhelm, became an important figure in the study and development of organic chemistry and established the first X-ray laboratory in Munich in 1885. Another brother Fritz was a well known goldsmith & sculptor, another, Winfried was an artist.

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Lieutenant General Herbert Lumsden 1898-1945 (G Grandfather)

Herbert Lumsden was born in 1894. He joined the British Army and in 1939 was sent with General John Gort and the British Expeditionary Force to France. Colonel Lumsden's Armoured Car Regiment played a significant role in the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940.

 

In January 1942 Lumsden joined the Desert War when he was appointed commander of the 1st British Armed Division. Soon after arriving he was badly wounded in an air attack and was replaced by Frank Messervy.

 

Lumsden returned to duty in May, 1942, and serving under Neil Richie, suffered defeat at Gazala in June. This military disaster resulted in the appointment of General Bernard Montgomery as commander of the Eighth Army. Montgomery immediately removed most of the senior officers who had been fighting in Egypt under General Claude Auchinleck. As Lumsden had only just arrived he was promoted to commander of the new 10th Corps. 

 

Lumsden suffered heavy losses in the battle at Kidney Hill (27th October - 4th November) but still managed to break through the lines of the Deutsches Afrika Korps and reached El Agheila.

 

General Bernard Montgomery and Lumsden disagreed about the tactics being used in the Desert War and this led to several arguments. On 13th December 1942 Montgomery sacked Lumsden and replaced him with Brian Horrocks. Afterwards Lumsden commented that "There just isn't room in the desert for two - like Montgomery and me."

 

Lumsden was liked and respected by Winston Churchill and in 1944 he was sent to join the staff of General Douglas MacArthur. On 6th January 1945 Lumsden was observing the bombardment of Lingayen Gulf on board New Mexico when it was hit by a kamikaze pilot. Herbert Lumsden died from his injuries and was buried at sea. 

 

Obituary -The Times, 12 January 1945

Lieutenant-General Herbert Lumsden, CB., DSO*.,MC., who was killed on 6 January on the bridge of a United States warship in the Pacific, had been Mr. Churchill's special representative with General MacArthur since 1943. In a message to the Prime Minister General MacArthur says:-

 

"It is superfluous for me to speak of the complete courage which this officer so frequently displayed in my immediate presence during the operations in this theatre during the last year. His general service and usefulness to the Allied cause was beyond praise, and his loss has caused the deepest sorrow to all ranks”

 

Lumsden was one of those men who take naturally to warfare. He had the temperament, the nerve, and the flair for it as well as considerable experience of staff work and command. He was a practical rather than an intellectual soldier, but possessed a fund of shrewdness which stood him in good stead. Born on 8 April 1897, he was, therefore, at the outbreak of the 1914-18 war only 17 years of age. He served in the ranks for 10 months, passed through Woolwich, and was gazetted second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1916. He served for the remainder of the war in France and Belgium, being awarded the M.C. In 1925 he transferred to the 12th Royal Lancers and was soon afterwards promoted captain. He served as G.S.O.3 Aldershot Command for eight months in 1932, and afterwards for three years as brigade major, 1st Cavalry Brigade. He received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel in 1936. During the next two years he was G.S.O.2 at the Staff College. He was promoted substantive lieutenant-colonel in 1938, and from 1938 to 1940 he commanded his regiment in succession to Lieutenant-Colonel R.L. McCreery.

 

A born cavalryman, Lumsden could not have been better placed with the B.E.F. than in command of the 12 Lancers, an armoured car regiment. In reconnaissance, in falling suddenly upon small advanced hostile elements, in rearguard actions, he was indefatigable in his work in advance of the British line on the Dender and the Escaut. In late May he performed brilliant service in an ugly situation on the northern flank of the 3rd Division, when the Belgian Army had laid down its arms and the Germans were pressing forward to cross the Yser river and canal and get behind the B.E.F. The combination of mobility and tenacity displayed by the 12th Lancers on that occasion did much to hold up the enemy for two days in the critical Nieuport-Dixmude area.

 

For his work in the low countries, Lumsden received the D.S.O and he was also promoted colonel. Immediately afterwards he took over command of an armoured brigade, and with it went out to the Middle East. There he added to his already high reputation. In 1941 he took over command of the 1st Armoured Division. He received a bar to the D.S.O for courage and devotion to duty at Knightsbridge in the third Libyan campaign. After the retreat at El Alamein and the reorganization of the command he was appointed to the command of the XXX Corps in succession to the late Lieutenant-General W.H.E Gott, afterwards exchanging it for another. He was slightly wounded during the Eighth Army's stand at El Alamein. Lumsden now appeared to have everything before him. He was 45, acting lieutenant-general, and a corps commander in the only British army then engaged against the Germans, and both public and private report had been loud in his praise. He seemed to be in the running for even higher appointments, but they were not to come his way. After taking part in the Battle of El Alamein he left his command, in no sense under a cloud, but undoubtedly after some difference of opinion. The fresh appointment to which he did go, that of Mr. Churchill's special representative with General MacArthur, was of high importance and responsibility, but perhaps not one which he would himself have chosen, as it might have been adequately held by an older man. He made a great success of it. In the New Year Honours List he was made a C.B.

 

Lumsden was an ardent devotee of the Turf. Though nearly 6ft. tall, he was slim and spare, and a very good man in a steeplechase. He rode in the Grand National on several occasions and in 1926 won the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown on Foxtrot. He was probably one of the best of the soldier riders under National Hunt rules in the generation between the two wars. In 1923 he married Alice Mary, younger daughter of George Roddick, and they had two sons.

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Stanley Baldwin 1867-1947 (GG Grandfather)

Stanley Baldwin, the son of the industrialist, Alfred Baldwin, was born in Bewdley on 3rd August 1867. After being educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined the family iron and steel business.

 

In the 1906 General Election, Baldwin was elected as Conservative MP for Bewdley. In December 1916, Baldwin became Private Parliamentary Secretary to Andrew Bonar Law, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the government led by David Lloyd George, Baldwin served as Junior Lord of the Treasury, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and President of the Board of Trade. 

 

In October 1922 Baldwin organised the plot that ousted David Lloyd George as Prime Minister of the coalition government. The new Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, appointed Stanley Baldwin Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1922. When ill-health forced Bonar Law to resign in May 1923 Baldwin became the new Prime Minister. 1925 Baldwin had to deal with the crisis in the coal industry. When the mine-owners announced that they intended to reduce the miner's wages. The General Council of the Trade Union Congress responded to this news by promising to support the miners in their dispute with their employers. Baldwin decided to intervene, and his government supplied the necessary money to bring the miners' wages back to their previous level. However, Baldwin stated that this subsidy to the miners' wages would only last 9 months. In the meantime he set up a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel, to look into the problems of the Mining Industry.

 

Samuel Commission published its report in March 1926. Samuel recommended that the Government subsidy should be withdrawn and the miners' wages should be reduced. The Trade Union Congress called a General Strike but continued to negotiate with the government. The main figure involved in these negotiations was Jimmy Thomas. Talks went on until late on Sunday night, and according to Thomas, they were close to agreement when Baldwin broke off negotiations. The reason for his action was that printers at the Daily Mail had refused to print a leading article attacking the proposed General Strike.3rd May the Trade Union Congress called out workers in the key industries - railwaymen, transport workers, dockers, printers, builders, iron and steel workers - a total of 3 million men (a fifth of the adult male population). 

 

Baldwin arranged for Sir Herbert Samuel to meet the leaders of the Trade Union Congress. Without telling the miners, the TUC negotiating committee met Samuel and worked out a set of proposals to end the General Strike. These included: (1) a National Wages Board with an independent chairman; (2) a minimum wage for all colliery workers; (3) workers displaced by pit closures to be given alternative employment; (4) the wages subsidy to be renewed while negotiations continued. , Samuel warned that subsequent negotiations would probably mean a reduction in wages. These terms were accepted by the TUC negotiating committee, but were rejected by the executive of the Miners' Federation. On the 11th May, at a meeting of the Trade Union Congress General Committee, it was decided to accept the terms proposed by Herbert Samuel and to call off the General Strike.On 21st June 1926, Baldwin's Government introduced a Bill into the House of Commons that suspended the miners' Seven Hours Act for five years - thus permitting a return to an 8 hour day for miners. In July the mine-owners announced new terms of employment for miners based on the 8 hour day. 1927 Baldwin's Government passed the Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act. This act made all sympathetic strikes illegal, ensured the trade union members had to voluntarily 'contract in' to pay the political levy, forbade Civil Service unions to affiliate to the TUC, and made mass picketing illegal. 

 

Baldwin lost the 1929 General Election but was invited to join the National Government formed by Ramsay MacDonald in August 1931. Baldwin became President of the Council until he replaced MacDonald as Prime Minister in June 1935. 

 

Baldwin was criticised for his policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War and his reluctance to rearm against the growing threat from Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. It has also been claimed that his policies were also partly responsible for prolonging the economic depression in the 1930s. 

 

In 1936 the Conservative government feared the spread of communism from the Soviet Union to the rest of Europe. Baldwin shared this concern and was fairly sympathetic to the military uprising in Spain against the left-wing Popular Front government. 

 

Leon Blum, the prime minister of the Popular Front government in France, initially agreed to send aircraft and artillery to help the Republican Army in Spain. However, after coming under pressure from Baldwin and Anthony Eden in Britain, and more right-wing members of his own cabinet, he changed his mind. 

 

Baldwin and Blum now called for all countries in Europe not to intervene in the Spanish Civil War. A Non-Intervention Agreement was drawn-up and was eventually signed by 27 countries including the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy. However, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini openly ignored the agreement and sent a large amount of military aid, including troops, to General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist forces.

 

The Labour Party originally supported the government's non-intervention policy. However, when it became clear that Hitler and Mussolini were determined to help the Nationalists win the war, Labour leaders began to call for Britain to supply the Popular Front with military aid. Some members of the party joined the International Brigades and fought for the Republicans in Spain. 

 

Of the 2,000 British citizens who served with the Republican Army, the majority were members of the Communist Party. Although some notable literary figures volunteered (W. H. Auden, George Orwell, John Cornford, Stephen Spender, Christopher Caudwell), most of the men who went to Spain were from the working-class, including a large number of unemployed miners. 

 

To stop volunteers fighting for the Republicans, the British government announced on 9th January, 1937, that it intended to invoke the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870. It also passed the Merchant Shipping (Carriage of Munitions to Spain) Act.

 

The abdication crisis was one of the key moments of Stanley Baldwin's political career. It fell to the then Conservative prime minister to refuse King Edward VIII permission to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson - and to outline the situation to the Commons. The speech he made to MPs has been described as one of the greatest of the age. It prompted Harold Nicholson MP to report in his diary:  "We file out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech we will ever hear in our lives. No man has dominated the House as he dominated it today and he knows it."  When King Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, Baldwin did not approve wholeheartedly of the new monarch for reasons as diverse as his taste for light-coloured suits and what was believed to be his sympathy for certain aspects of Nazi Germany. When the King told Baldwin he wanted to marry Mrs Simpson, the prime minister told the monarch it would be unacceptable.  "I think I know our people," he told them. "They will tolerate a lot in private life, but they will not stand for this sort of thing in a public personage." In a series of meetings he spelled out Edward's options to him, which eventually boiled down to renouncing Mrs Simpson or abdicating - the King chose the latter. It was generally agreed Baldwin had handled the situation well. He retired a few months later, shortly after the Coronation of George VI in May 1937, and in the words of historian Robert Blake "no prime minister has ever chosen a better moment to bow out". After retiring from the House of Commons he was granted the title Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Stanley Baldwin died on 14th December 1947. 

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Karl Christian Andreae, 1823-1904 (5G Grandfather)

If his father had had his way, Karl Christian Andreae would have joined the family trading firm. Aged 10, he was sent to boarding school in Cologne but only attended until reaching secondary grade. He was already discovering his artistic streak and after a series of run-ins with his teachers, he ran away from school. His parents decided to make the best of it and sent him to the Düsseldorf Academy of Painting. The school’s Director Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow took him under his wing and Karl very swiftly justified the man’s faith in his artistic talents. Aged 20 he was well on the way to becoming a professional artist, winning a national award for his  ‘Petri Predigt’. This is also when Karl started to paint portraits, including of his family; something he would continue to do throughout his career.

 

Between 1845 and 1848 Karl, like every other painter of the time worth his salt, visited Italy and in particular Rome. Here he met the moderately renowned Overbeck und von Steinle artists to who’s religious and historical themes he felt drawn. Another painter, Karl Lindemann-Frommel from Karlsruhe also influenced Andreae and encouraged his work.

 

After his return from Italy, Andreae was commissioned to paint a series of portraits of the family of the revolutionary General Hans von Auerswald in the spring of 1848. In the period he also made the acquaintance of the authors brothers Wilhelm und Jacob Grimm. He had hoped to join the romantic artist and member of the Nazarenes Peter von Cornelius in Berlin but this proved impossible because of political unrest in the country The Nazarenes were a group of German and Austrian artists  who sought to invest modern painting with the purity of form and spiritual values that they saw in Renaissance art. He returned to Rome, only to witness the siege of that city by the French army. Karl returned to Berlin, settled first in Berlin where he married Marie Dilthey. He remained in Berlin until 1856 painting a series of romantic paintings; “Das Almosen der Witwe und des reichen Mannes”, “Besuch der Maria bei Elisabeth” as well as a large protrait of Wilhelm Grimm.

 

From Berlin Karl Andreae moved to Dresden, where he built himself a home and spent 24 happy years. In this period he collaborated and corresponded with leading German romantic painters such as Ludwig Richter, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Eduard Bendemann and Ulrich Hübner. A series or commissions from the Saxon court led to his involvement in heritage restoration projects, some of which continue to exist today.

 

Karl was also commissioned by another local ruler, the Archduke of Mecklenburg, to restore and renovate several churches including the gothic cathedral in Doberan on the Baltic Coast. It was upon completion of the work that he gained his professorship.

 

The catholic architect Friedrich von Schmidt commissioned Andreae in later years to restore the interiors of the rebuilt 11th century cathedral in Fünfkirchen in Hungary, a task that took him 6 years. Other commissions included work in Linz and Neuwied as well as the decoration of the choristry of the Christuskirche in Cologne. This last commission came through Karl’s brother Otto, a successful businessman and local politician, Incidently, Karl’s & Otto’s sister Adele married Gustaf Otto Bunge, uncle to Ernst Anton Bunge, who you will meet later. After his death Karl Andreae took over the Helenaberg property in Sinzig, near Bonn as his residence.  When he died, his brother in law Gustaf Bunge inherited the property. It is now the local museum

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Robert Douglas, 1611-1662 (10G Grandfather)

Robert Douglas (1611-1662) Swedish field marshal and count, was born on Standingstone farm, near Haddington, East Lothian in Scotland on 17 March 1611, the youngest of at least three sons of Patrick Douglas of Whittinghame and his wife Christina (Andrews?) Leslie, daughter of Leslie of Innerdivat. The 1648 document proving Douglas’ ancestry, obtained from the Scottish Parliament in king Charles I’s name, listed his father as “comarchus” of Standingstone, which later became translated as marquis in Sweden, although Patrick Douglas was only a laird. Not much is known of Douglas’ early years, but by 1628 he took a path common to many young Scotsmen and entered Swedish service in Colonel James Ramsay’s regiment, along with his two brothers, William and Richard who both died shortly thereafter.

 

Douglas was taken into service as a page for the Count Palatine Johan Casimir, the brother in law of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf, and as a result Douglas came to know the future king Karl X rather well. Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna wrote to Casimir on 12 October explaining that he could not provide Casimir's page, Douglas, with repayment of his late brothers' loans, although he implied that possibly something could be arranged in Sweden. Douglas soon became an ensign in Gustav II Adolf’s service, and saw action during the joint Swedish-Danish defence of Stralsund from 1629 to 1630, where he served under the command of governor and Colonel Alexander Leslie. Although his autobiographical notes maintain he was still a personal page to the Swedish king (Kurzer Verlauff Seiner Hoch Gräflichen Excellence Herren General Douglas geführten Lebens, so viel man sich besinnen kan), the Swedish army muster rolls reveal that a Robert Douglas entered the Green regiment in 1631. 

 

Douglas also served as lieutenant captain of some of the British troops recruited by the Marquis of Hamilton for Swedish service. Here he recruited soldiers in Surrey, Middlesex and Gloucester for his company under Sir James Ramsay the Fair. It was perhaps he who was noted as having accidently set fire to some houses in Rosenburg and which caught the attention of the author of the Swedish Intelligencer. There is confusion in various sources over his status in 1632. Some record that at the battle of Lützen on 16 November 1632 he was captain of the first company of Gustav II Adolf's "Yellow Regiment". Others state that Douglas had already become a major with Alexander Hamilton's dragoon corps from 1632, was raised to lieutenant colonel two years later. Yet German sources indicate that in 1633 Douglas became lieutenant-colonel of the dragoons in the regiment of Pierre de Brossard (under Wilhelm IV of Saxe-Weimar) after which he was tasked with the defence of Egeln. He finally became a full colonel in 1636 after bringing his regiment back to Swedish service in the aftermath of the Peace of Prague. His ride through hostile territory to do so earned him great respect and the promotion was insisted upon by Axel Oxenstierna. He took part in the Swedish victory at Wittstock in Autumn 1636.

 

Douglas then decided to travel home that year to sort out domestic issues in Scotland, and the Riksråd (Swedish State Council) arranged accreditation for him to Charles I. The intercessory letter they provided concerned his inheritance troubles, whilst Chancellor Oxenstierna also employed him for personal affairs in London. Douglas therefore had both official and private sponsorship from the highest echelons of Swedish government for his journey, and by November 1636, he arrived in London. He avoided involvement in the Covenanting wars of Scotland and returned to Sweden to continue his military career, returning to his regiment in Saxony. When Colonel Harry Lindsay drew up a bond of assignation of 11,000 merks in 1637, Lord Spynie was to receive 8,000, Colonel Robert Douglas was to get 2,000 and Lyndsay (Earl of Crawford?), 1,000 merks. So while he became ever more important as a Swedish commander, he maintained links with he countrymen in Swedish service and at home in Scotland.

 

By 1640 his regiment was quartered in Thuringia. Douglas was wounded in battle in 1642 while fighting against Speigle. He recovered and by August 1644 he was promoted to major general of the Swedish cavalry. He joined the German political and literary society Der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft the same year under the name Der Lebhafte. Douglas further consolidated his social standing by marrying Hedvig Mörner, the sister-in-law of baron Erik Stenbock in 1645, the same year as he fought in the battle of Jankau. This year also saw him briefly quartered in Horn (Lower Austria).

 

Douglas's wife and family followed him on his foreign appointments, as shown by the birth of his sixth child in Poland in 1655. He also did not forget his immediate relatives left behind in Scotland. He entrusted John Maclean to ensure the payment of 200 rex dollars (£580 Scots) would reach the general’s two sisters, Euphame and Helen Douglas, then living in Fife. Maclean organised the payment with Robert Law, a skipper of an Anstruther ship, who delivered the money in January 1656. Douglas took an interest in the wider Scottish network. In 1646 he had ensured that money was made available for the education of 'young Cunningham’ - Robert Cunningham. His position as governor of Schwaben in 1646, 1648-1650 and again in 1655 caused him problems due to the extreme lack of funds available, frequently complained about in the Riksråd. The treasury records contain accounts of his salary for 1656 being 224 57 5/12 riksdaler while his regiment got 1714 36 1/6 riksdaler. The next year he received 237 89 riksdaler whilst his regiment of horse got 1260 88 1/2 riksdaler.

 

He spent a month in Stockholm in 1647 participating in the Riksråd meetings, often in the presence of Queen Kristina, where he provided information on the army’s situation in Germany, and advised the queen against her plan to enter into land exchanges with the French. He also took part in the treaty negotiations with the Duke of Bavaria that same year in Ulm (signed 14 March 1647). He was in regular correspondence with Arvid Forbes, vice governor of Pomerania during this time. On 10 July 1647, Douglas received a donation of the territory of Kloster Zeven (a convent) in Bremen Stift, the same day he was appointed lieutenant general. By 1650 there were still nine nuns living there. However his focus remained military and he appears to have let the nuns continue in their religious service.

 

The castle of Gleichenstein [Thuringia] was besieged and bombarded for some days by Douglas in December 1647.  Douglas was heavily wounded by a musket bullet on 9/19 December. Nonetheless, together with the Swedish commander-in-chief Carl Gustav Wrangel he took part in the conquest and plundering of Freising (Bavaria) in June 1648. From 1648 to 1650 he served as governor of Schwaben and authorized with the discharge of all regiments quartered there.

 

During this time he submitted plans for a home at Qvarnholmen in Stockholm. However, he went on to have a five-storey palace built for himself on the exclusive Stockholm island of Blasieholmen. It was the work of the Royal Architect Jean de la Vallée and represented his first attempt at designing a private dwelling. The change of location might be explained because Douglas was ennobled in 1651 with the title of Baron of Skälby, which gave him land at Kalmar. That year he was also appointed a member of the military council, despite his open Calvinism. His integration into Swedish noble and court society was confirmed by service as the royal stable master in 1652. Two years later he gained another title, of Count of Skenninge, and was introduced to the Swedish House of Nobility. He continued his participation in the Riksråd meetings too. During his role as master of the royal stable he was instructed to register and send all the reformed officers of Närke Värmland to the military college in Stockholm in 1653. 

 

Sweden entered into war with Poland in 1655 which saw Douglas active as general and successfully taking a fortress barely 6 miles from Crakow. He became a lieutenant Field Marshall of the infantry and cavalry that year. Douglas personally accompanied Karl X on his march toward Riga in 1656, and then became a full Field Marshall the following year. During these years he attended the Riksdag in 1651, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58. Due to war with Denmark-Norway Douglas was recalled from Riga, with his family, to help defend Sweden. He not only participated in the Riksråd again in 1657, but also served as a military advisor to the Swedish goverment on defence tactics.

Although Douglas remained on the periphery of British political developments throughout his life, King Charles II personally requested his support in providing Scottish recruits for his use in 1655. He was not able to provide this, but supplied the king with money instead. Douglas also sought Swedish intercession in 1658 on behalf of John Maitland, Marquis and Duke of Lauderdale, who was imprisoned by Cromwell. Although this did not lead to Lauderdale’s immediate release, his prison conditions improved.

 

Douglas’s military expertise led the Riksråd sending him to Båhus in Norway in July 1657 with 2000 soldiers and 300 horses. The campaign, which attempted to cut Bohus in an east/west division, faltered despite Douglas' 200-strong infantry and 2 companies of cavalry defence at Brekke, and he withdrew from Norway on 6 August. 

 

The following year he attacked the Wermland region with the aim of capturing Trondheim from the Norwegians. That same year he also served on the military council which was organising the garrisons in occupied territories of Denmark-Norway. Toward the end of 1658 Douglas replaced governor Magnus de la Gardie as military commander in the Baltic states of Estonia and Livonia and was sent to Riga. Douglas’ military duties in the Baltic were to regain territories occupied by the Russians, who had joined in the Polish war against Sweden. Indeed Douglas’ most notorious duty involved kidnapping the Duke of Courland and his family on the orders of Karl X after which they were sent to Riga. According to Manley, a copy of this order was intercepted by the Danes in September 1657. Apparently he did not have the full obedience of his troops as they plundered Courland against his orders. Once peace had been established at Kardis in 1661, Douglas became responsible for demobilising his Swedish troops. During this time Douglas still had duties in Stockholm such as attendance at the Riksdag in 1660.

 

King Karl X, with whom Douglas had such a longstanding relationship (Douglas had twice entertained the Swedish royal couple at his Gothenburg home in 1658) died, and when he fell out of favour with the new Swedish king, Karl XI, he considered moving to Scotland with his family. However this time of disfavour soon passed and Douglas and his family returned to Sweden in September 1661. Douglas continued to participate in Riksråd and military council meetings until his death from natural causes on 28 May 1662. 

 

Robert’s grandson, Count Gustav Otto Douglas, was captured by the Russians during the Battle of Poltava, entered Russian service, and in 1717 was made Peter the Great's Governor General over Finland. In the 1890s the then head of the family, Count Ludvig Douglas, was the Swedish foreign minister and Marshal of the Realm. Ludwig’s father Count Carl Israel Douglas (1824-1898) married a morganatic daughter of Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden and inherited Langenstein Castle and Gondelsheim Castle, becoming the first count of the Douglas family in the nobility of Baden in 1848. Ludvig Douglas' son, General Archibald Douglas-Stjernorp, was the Chief of the Swedish Army during World War II.

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Ferdinand von Malaisé 1806-1892 (4G Grandfather)

Ferdinand Malaisé, after 1862 Ritter Ferdinand von Malaisé was a Major General in the Bavarian army, a Professor of Mathematics and tutor to Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria.

 

Ferdinand was the son of Christophe Malaisé and Magdalena Stephani. Christoph was employed by the Rhine Customs Union (Rheinschifffahrts-Octroi), formed in 1804 by the French and Holy Roman Empires to facilitate the free movement of goods on the Rhine.

 

In 1822 at the age of 16, Ferdinand joined the Bavarian Army in Landau. In 1825 he was posted to Munich where in 1830 he married Adelheid Wibmer, the daughter of Sebastian Alois Wibmer, a court official. They had three sons and four daughters. After being promoted to captain, Ferdinand became tutor to Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria and his brother Prinz Leopold. After further promotions in 1853 and 1861, Ferdinand was awarded the Royal Bavarian Order of Merit in 1862. In 1870 he was appointed Commander, 1st Royal Bavarian Field Artillery Brigade and director of Field Artillery, 1st Royal Bavarian Corps during the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871). In 1887 he was enrolled in the nobility of Bavaria as Ritter. He died in June 1892 and is buried in the Alte Südfriedhof in München, Germany.

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Ludwig Wilhelm August of Baden, 1763-1830 (5G Grandfather)

Ludwig was the third son of Grand Duke Karl Friedrich of Baden and Karoline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt. He was not expected to succeed to the throne of Baden. In 1787, the young Ludwig asked Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia to accept him into his service. By September, he was already a colonel commanding the Grenadier Guard Battalion No. 6 of the Prussian Army.

His first test on the battlefield came in the First Coalition War. Due to his bravery in the battle at Hochheim, he was knighted into the Order of the Black Eagle on January 6 and promoted to Major General on January 17, 1793. On February 23, 1793, he was appointed by King Friedrich Wilhelm II as the head of the Infantry Regiment "Jung Bornstedt."

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On February 16, 1795, he resigned and returned to Baden. His brother the crown prince Karl Ludwig died in an accident in December 1801, and his other brother Frederick became ill so Margrave Karl Friedrich began to involve Ludwig more in state affairs. In 1802, he sent Ludwig on a diplomatic mission first to the Tsar's court in Moscow and then to Paris to negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte. Ludwig also participated in the Congress of Princes initiated by Napoleon in Mainz (then part of France) in 1804 and, in December of the same year, attended Napoleon's coronation as Emperor together with the heir apparent his nephew prince Karl, son of his deceased brother Karl Ludwig. In turbulent times for Baden, he was also directly involved in government affairs. In 1803, he became Minister of War, and in 1804, he took on the responsibility for the finance and forestry administration of the young Grand Duchy, an ally of Napoleonic France during this period.

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Ludwig initially had good personal relations with Napoleon and the French government and was regarded as a friend of France. At the end of 1805 and the beginning of 1806, he was involved as a mediator on behalf of the French for the planned marriage of Elector Prince Karl to Napoleon's adopted daughter Stéphanie de Beauharnais. However, for reasons still unclear, after Napoleon's visit to Karlsruhe in January 1806, Napoleon demanded Ludwig's resignation from government and two years later from his military responsibilities in Baden, after which Ludwig was exiled to Schloss Salem in 1810 on Napoleon's orders. He was not allowed to enter the capital Karlsruhe again until 1812, after his father's death.

Ludwig unexpectedly ascended the Baden throne in 1818 after his nephew Karl died without legitimate male heirs. By this point the succession had become complicated. Ludwig, like his nephew and brother before him, had no legitimate male heirs but Ludwig’s father Karl Friedrich had remarried following the death of Ludwig’s mother in 1783 and as the dynasty was running out of legitimate male heirs and in order to avoid Baden being gobbled up by Karl Friedrich’s brother in law King Maximillian of Bavaria, the children from this second morganatic marriage had been controversially recognised as the heirs of the throne of Baden in 1808. In addition there were rumours of skullduggery relating to the succession with the so-called Kaspar Hauser affair. Kaspar Hauser was a young man who appeared in 1828 in Nuremberg under mysterious circumstances, claiming to have been kept in solitary confinement for his entire life and rumoured to be the hereditary Grand Duke Alexander of Baden, the surviving legitimate male heir of Karl, kidnapped at birth and replaced with a still born infant. The allegations were never proved, the succession was finalised at the Congress of Aachen in 1818 so after Ludwig died in 1830, he was succeeded by his half brother Leopold, eldest child from his father’s second marriage. Although Ludwig had no legitimate male heirs, he did have two children with a young actress called Katharina Werner, whom he created Countess of Langenstein and Gondelsheim in 1818. Their son Louis died without issue but their daughter Countess Louise von Langenstein und Gondelsheim married Swedish aristocrat Count Carl Israel Douglas in 1848.

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Ludwig was an autocrat and he repeatedly tried to undermine the rights of the parliament by rarely convening it or preventing officials who were also parliament members from fulfilling their duties. Nevertheless he was also a cultured man and besides maintaining the venerable University of Heidelberg, which came under the Grand Duchy in 1803, he also expanded the University of Freiburg. In 1825, he merged the architecture school founded by Friedrich Weinbrenner with the engineering school founded by Johann Gottfried Tulla, both in Karlsruhe. The Polytechnic School is the direct predecessor of the University of Karlsruhe (now KIT). Ludwig wrote in the founding document: "students should acquire their knowledge not only for their scientific education but to study these sciences for future use in life and for life, whether in architecture or in hydraulic and road construction or in mining and forestry…”. Karlsruhe is thus one of Germany's oldest technical universities.

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Since Baden and thus the House of Baden were Lutheran, while the it’s territories in the Palatinate were Reformed, a reconciliation was necessary because these two confessions had greater theological differences with each other than with the Catholic Church. At Ludwig's behest, a general synod of the two churches was convened in Karlsruhe's city church with significant involvement from Johann Peter Hebel. On July 26, 1821, 44 delegates agreed to unite the two confessions into the Evangelical Church in Baden. In 1829, the first church of the young Protestant community in Freiburg im Breisgau was built under the supervision of Baden's chief architect Heinrich Hübsch.

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Ernest Anton Bunge, 1846-1933 (3G Grandfather)

The Bunge’s emigrated from the island of Gotland, Sweden, in the early 1600s, as King Gustav extended his military power into Estonia and Denmark. The family divided into three branches: the Bunges of Germany became intellectuals, priests and civil servants; The Bunges of Russia became jurists and scholars; The Bunges of Holland became merchants and money men. By 1750, in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, the Bunge family had gone in to business trading hides, spices and rubber from the Dutch overseas colonies.

 

In 1818 Peter Gottlieb Bunge founded Bunge & Co. an import and export company in Amsterdam. His grandson Edouard Bunge moved the family business to Antwerp, Belgium in 1859. Eduard was a close associate of Leopold II and one of the main investors in the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company and the Société Anversoise du Commerce au Congo. He went on to make a fortune from his investments in the rubber trade in the notoriously brutal Congo Free State established by the king in 1885 as a personal colony.

 

In 1876 Eduard’s brother Ernest Anton emigrated to Argentina where he and his partners established Bunge y Born to trade in Argentina’s grain exports. The company became one of the most important commodities industrial complexes in the Americas and today has an annual turnover of over 13 billion dollars a year.

 

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Hermann Münchmeyer, 1815-1909 (4G Grandfather)

Karl Georg Heinrich Franz Hermann Münchmeyer was a merchant, banker, politician and diplomat. Hermann came from the Münchmeyer family in Lower Saxony and was the son of the physician and physicist Ernst Münchmeyer and Amalie Meyersiek. He married Emma Flashoff and the marriage produced a daughter and a son, Friedrich Ernst Alwin Münchmeyer, co-owner of the company "Münchmeyer & Co."

 

Hermann emigrated to Haiti as a young man to seek his fortune, where he was a merchant in the export port of Aux Cayes. In 1843, however, he was forced to leave the country due to the devastating earthquake of 7 May 1842, which caused an estimated 10,000 deaths and was followed by political unrest and popular uprisings that led to the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer.

 

After his return to Hamburg Hermann became a Hamburg citizen and founded the company  Münchmeyer, Reimers & Nölting with his Haitian business partners Jacques Emile Louis Alexandre Nölting and Julius Friedrich Wilhelm Reimers. At the beginning of January 1855, the liquidation of the joint company was announced and Herrmann Münchmeyer founded his own company "Münchmeyer & Co.", which was active in banking, worldwide import and export and wholesale.

 

From 1848 to 1865, Münchmeyer was Consul of Haiti, from 1859 to 1861 a member of the Hamburg Parliament, from 1859 to 1901 a member of the Supervisory Board of Norddeutsche Bank from 1863 to 1868 a judge at the High Court, from 1864 to 1866 a member of the Hamburg Commercial Deputation, and in 1865 a member of the Deputation for Trade and Shipping and the Emigration Deputation.

 

He was also a member of the supervisory board of the Nord-Deutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft and the Hamburg-Bremer Feuer-Versicherungsgesellschaft as well as an honorary member of the board of the Vaterländische Frauen-Hilfs-Verein.

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Robin Howard, 1924-1989 (Great Uncle)

Born in London, England, Howard was the grandson of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and the eldest child of Sir Arthur Howard and Lady Lorna Howard. On both sides of the family there was a strong tradition of public service, and an early involvement with the arts from his mother. He studied at Eton College and served in World War II as a lieutenant in the Scots Guards (1942–45), until he sustained injuries in the Netherlands that resulted in the loss of both his legs at the age of 20. In 1945 he resumed his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, and passed the bar examination to become a lawyer, but he never practiced; instead he entered the hotel and restaurant business. In 1956 he formed the Hungarian Department of the United Nations Association in England to assist refugees, and served as its director of international service (1956–63).

 

In 1963, Howard became a full-time patron of modern dance beginning with his sponsorship of performances by the Martha Graham Dance Company, a troupe that he first encountered in 1954. He persuaded Graham to return to Britain to appear at the 1963 Edinburgh Festival and in a London engagement. Following the company's successful tour, he established Graham-inspired classes, and by 1967 he had founded the London Contemporary Dance Group (afterward renamed the London Contemporary Dance Theatre) and the Contemporary Dance Trust, of which he was director general (1966–88) and life president (1988–89). In 1969 Howard based the Trust in a London complex of buildings known as The Place, which has served as a centre for British contemporary dance ever since.

 

Howard was successful in several business ventures, particularly with his purchase (against all advice) and transformation of the Gore Hotel, where he was able to put to good use his enthusiasm for wine. However, he sold many of his most cherished possessions to support contemporary dance in Britain and persuaded many others to make generous donations too.

 

Howard was also a noted collector of contemporary art, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a passionate supporter of artists shown at Gallery One in London and became a major patron of both Francis Newton Souza and John Christoforou during this period. Like in other aspects of his life, Howard appreciated the vibrancy and power involved in their art - a contrast with some of the cooler, more cerebral movements then in vogue.

 

In the 1976 New Year Honours Howard was made a CBE in recognition of his services to dance, and in 1989 he was elected President of the International Dance Council of the International Theatre Institute. In 2001, the theatre at The Place was renamed the Robin Howard Dance Theatre in his honour. Howard is now recognised as one of the founders of Contemporary Dance in Britain.  To quote journalist Clement Crisp in the Financial Times:

 

"It is impossible to overestimate the significance of Robin Howard's work in securing and fostering the growth and development of contemporary dance in Britain... Robin Howard was single-minded in his dedication, and he worked without sparing himself. His simplicity and generosity of manner, his idealism and enthusiasm, touched everyone who knew or worked with him. His best memorial is surely the grand flowering of dance in this country that he inspired and guided.”

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Peter James Scott Lumsden, 1929 – 2017 (Grandfather)

Peter James Scott Lumsden was a British motorsport competitor who gained renown between 1959 and 1965 racing at Le Mans, the Nürburgring, Silverstone & Goodwood before twice winning at Brands Hatch in his final season in 1965. He was the younger son of Lieutenant-General Herbert Lumsden

 

Lumsden started racing in 1956 with the Lotus-Climax Mk IX, enjoying considerable success including victory in his first sortie at Goodwood. This together with numerous other second and third places brought him the prestigious Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy at the end of his first season. After a less rewarding year in 1957 with a Lotus Eleven, Lumsden acquired the third Lotus Elite prototype (WUU2) in late 1958.

 

Lumsden raced the Elite extensively in 1959. After winning the 1300 cc GT class in the Nürburgring 1000 km round of the World Sports Car Championship with co-driver Peter Riley, the pair took part in the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours. Winner that year was Carroll Shelby with co-driver Roy Salvadori in the Aston Martin DBR1/300 but the two Peters finished a respectable 8th overall, 1st in the 1500 cc GT class, 2nd in the newly instigated Index of Thermal Efficiency and 5th in the Index of Performance.

 

In 1960 Lumsden began his partnership with co-driver Peter Sargent at the Nürburgring 1000 Ks, finishing second in the 1300 cc GT class to the Team Elite entry for Alan Stacey and John Wagstaff. Driving solo, Peter Lumsden then won the 1300 CC GT class of the 1960 RAC Tourist Trophy at Goodwood, finishing ninth overall behind various Ferraris and Aston Martins plus Graham Hill's Porsche Carrera Abarth and 5.2 seconds ahead of Graham Warner's famous Elite LOV 1 after three hours of racing.

 

In Lumsden & Riley's final season in the Elite in 1961 they again produced a 1300 cc GT class win in the Nürburgring 1000 km. In the TT later that year, Lumsden driving solo had to settle for second in class to Les Leston's Elite DAD 10, whilst finishing eighth overall.

 

In 1961 Lumsden and his now permanent co-driver Peter Sargent were able to acquire one of the earliest (898 BYR) E-Types off the production line at Jaguar. This was a measure of Lumsden & Sargent's standing as drivers as these cars were provided exclusively to influential motor sport teams and drivers as a result of supply problems at the Jaguar factory. In late September 1961 a fifth place in the Molyslip Trophy at Snetterton behind Mike Parkes (Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta), Roy Salvadori (E-type) and Innes Ireland (Aston Martin DB4GT), and ahead of all the other E-types, was an encouraging debut while the high point of the following year was Le Mans where the two Peters finished fifth overall, and second in the 4-litre GT class behind the Roy Salvadori/Briggs Cunningham E-type. With little more than an hour of the race remaining, 898 BYR was several laps ahead of the Cunningham car when the gearbox became stuck in fourth gear and they could only tour round to the finish.[1][2]

 

In 1963 Lumsden & Sargent acquired a Jaguar Lightweight E-Type (vehicle number 49 FXN), one of only 12 built at the time. On its debut in the 1963 Nurburgring 1000 km, Lumsden crashed 49 FXN badly and was fortunate to escape with his life. The car was returned to the Jaguar factory to be rebuilt and subsequently underwent extensive aerodynamic revision under Dr Samir Klat of Imperial College. On returning to competition in 1964, the car was timed at 168 mph on the Mulsanne straight during the Le Mans test weekend but failed to complete the race itself due to gearbox failure. Lumsden's best result of his few races in the car that year was eighth overall, fifth in class, in the Goodwood TT. Peter Sargent retired from racing at the end of that year but Peter Lumsden retained the car for one more season, winning a couple of victories in club races at Brands Hatch but no longer competitive against the new generation of Cobras and Ferrari 250GT0s. For his last visit to the Nürburgring, Lumsden shared Peter Sutcliffe's Ferrari 250GTO to win the 3-litre GT class. At the end of the 1965 season Peter Lumsden joined Peter Sargent in racing retirement and 49 FXN was sold and in due course became one of the most sought after low drag light weight E-types of all time, known as 49 FXN or the Lumsden/Sargent car.[3][4]

 

A chartered accountant by qualification, when Lumsden left the London Stock Exchange he took up farming near Dover. In 1995 he was appointed a CBE for services to healthcare.