Harry Cust
Henry Cust | |
---|---|
Born | Henry John Cockayne Cust 10 October 1861 London, England |
Died | 2 March 1917 London, England | (aged 55)
Education | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Occupation(s) | Politician and editor |
Spouse | Emmeline Mary Elizabeth (Nina) Welby-Gregory (1893–1917) |
Children | Lady Diana Manners (illegitimate daughter) |
Parent(s) | Henry Cockayne-Cust Sara Jane Cookson |
Relatives | Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (2nd cousin) |
Henry John Cockayne-Cust,
Origins
He was a son of Henry Cockayne-Cust, a younger grandson of Brownlow Cust, 1st Baron Brownlow, of Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire, by his wife Sara Jane Cookson.[1]
Career
Cust received his education at
Cust was a member of
In 1892, Cust was invited by William Waldorf Astor to edit the Pall Mall Gazette, despite having no prior experience in journalism. Cust quickly transformed the newspaper into the best evening journal of the period, largely due to his success in securing contributions from prominent writers such as Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells. However, Cust rejected contributions submitted by Astor himself, who had literary aspirations. This, along with political disagreements, led to Cust's dismissal in February 1896.[5]
After leaving the Pall Mall Gazette, Cust continued his career as an author, writing several poems including "Non nobis". During World War I, Cust was active in propaganda efforts on behalf of the British Government. In August 1914, he founded the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organizations.[6][7]
Death
He died in 1917 of a heart attack at his home in Hyde Park Gate, London. As the most senior male relative of his childless second cousin Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow, 3rd Viscount Alford, 4th Baron Brownlow, 7th Baronet (1844–1921), he had been the heir apparent to the barony of Brownlow, the Cust baronetcy and to the extensive Cust estates centred on Belton House. However, having predeceased the 3rd Earl by three years, the inheritance fell to his surviving younger brother Adelbert Cockayne-Cust, 5th Baron Brownlow, 8th Baronet (1867–1927).[8]
Marriage
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2016) |
As the result of a purported pregnancy, he married on 11 October 1893
Illegitimate descendants
Lady Diana Cooper
His best-known lovechild was the socialite Lady Diana Cooper (1892-1986), legally the daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland. Internationally famous for her beauty, she married the politician Duff Cooper in 1919.[10]
Lady Thatcher (rumoured)
A long-standing rumour has held that Cust had an affair with a servant at Belton House called Phoebe Stephenson, who consequently gave birth to a daughter named Beatrice, who having married Alfred Roberts, a grocer in nearby Grantham, became the mother of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.[11] In the 1980s, the very elderly Diana Cooper referred to Thatcher as "my niece, the Prime Minister".
Others
Anita Leslie, in her book Marlborough House Set, implies that Cust had many more children by aristocratic mistresses:[12] Leslie writes—
So much of the Cust strain entered England's peerage that from such a number of cradles there gazed babies with eyes like large sapphires instead of the black boot buttons of their legal fathers.
Legacy
- An annual Cust Lecture "on some important current topic relating to the British Empire" was endowed in the University of Nottingham to commemorate his work.[8]
- His Occasional Poems appeared in 1918, printed in Jerusalem.[8]
Footnotes
- ^ "Ancestry of Harry Cust". wargs.com. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
- ^ "Cust (Cockayne-Cust), Henry John Cockayne (CST881HJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ The Cust baronetcy, created in 1677, was designated "of Stamford"
- ^ John Campbell The Grocer's Daughter
- ^ Damian Atkinson, "Cust, Henry John Cockayne", in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), v. 14, p. 819.
- ^ "876. Non Nobis. Henry Cust. The Oxford Book of English Verse". bartleby.com. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
- ^ "876. Non Nobis. Henry Cust. The Oxford Book of English Verse". www.bartleby.com. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
- ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. .
- ^ Rylance-Watson, Alice (21 April 2021). "The Great British Art Tour: from a ceiling alcove, an artist's quiet gaze". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
- ^ It came to light in 2009 that Diana's son John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich was the biological father of the writer Allegra Huston, whose legal father was the American film-maker John Huston
- ^ "Roberts, Beatrice - Mother to a Prime Minister". 14 August 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
- ^ Anita Leslie, Marlborough House Set, p.248
Further reading
- Anita Leslie, The Marlborough House Set, Doubleday, New York, 1973 - Contains an entire chapter on Cust (Chapter 23, pp. 241–248)
External links
Media related to Harry Cust at Wikimedia Commons