The Clutterbuck Blog

Connecting New Zealand

2008-05-31T11:17:00.007-04:00

by Kirstin Duffield, treemad at btinternet dot com

I have been researching Clutterbucks for nearly 15 years now, I have collected a database of over 7000 people, 1800 marriages and covering 11 generations. The sources range from the traditional sources such as the IGI to my permanent subscription to Ancestry.com deluxe membership combined with valuable contributions from other researchers, passenger lists, obituaries, local paper archives, family bibles, photographs and family tales. Looking through the obvious for logical behaviour, cross references, from multiple sources and just plain old common sense has helped me to help loads of Clutterbucks who are interested in their family history. Added to this of course the privilege of the kind gift I received a couple of years ago of my own personal copy of “An Account of the principal branches of the Family of Clutterbuck”, Witchell and Hudleston – my eternal thanks to Mr Jones Who’s aunt married a Clutterbuck, the son of Henrietta Louisa Clutterbuck and Archie Kirkman Lloyd.

So when I was approached by Sonja from Australia who had the mystery of William Clutterbuck apparently born in 1832 in Hull (as it stated on his marriage certificate) who married Lydia Baker in January 1859 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Sonja was a descendant of their first surviving daughter Lydia Clutterbuck who travelled with her parents to New Zealand in the early 1860s first to Dunedin then later to Nelson.

Independently I have known Ian Clutterbuck who lives in New Zealand and he in turn knows Jenifer who is descendent of the second surviving daughter of William and Lydia, Frances who married Thomas Barnett.

But the two families had apparently lost touch and the living relatives appeared to have no knowledge of each other.

I started with the marriage certificate, William Clutterbuck aged 27 born in Hull son of Joseph and Frances nee Drew and Lydia Baker aged 24 born in Collumpton, Devon. But as far as I could see from every combination of search I could manage there was no possibility of William from Hull 1832 – not that was absent from England by the 1861 census as he was in Australia by then. I did find Lydia living with her parents in Collumpton, that was easy.

So I continued to look for William b1831/2 and his parents Joseph and Frances in any 1841 or 1851 census but to no avail. In the meantime I collected the information from Sonja (Including a family photograph) and Jenifer (through Ian) and collated what I could from the birth cert of Lydia, the death cert of William and Lydia’s first daughter Mary Ann and the birth cert of their son William jnr. I know from Ian that their second daughter Frances was born in New Zealand in 1862, and as William their son was born Dec 1861, we only had a small window to look at movements between Australia and New Zealand. I found a William Clutterbuck on the voting registers of Dunedin in April 1862, so the window was even shorter. But passenger lists between Australia and New Zealand are not as comprehensive as those from England to down under.

Figure 1 Family of Lydia Clutterbuck b1860 and William Lester and 12 children

But in my searches of passenger lists I did find a 21 year old Lydia Baker sailing from Plymouth to Geelong in 1857 on the Thomas Arbuthnot, but no sign of William so far. Looking further ahead I found a listing page from the local Nelson, NZ paper of the 1860’s which not only listed other children of William and Lydia but also Williams own demise on 2nd August 1875. In total William and Lydia had 7 children but definitely lost four of those in childhood. So far it is only the line of Lydia b1860 and Frances b1862 that we have connected up, what happened to William is still unknown although he is suspected to have also died young. What the obituary entry did introduce was that William snr was in fact William Blacksely Clutterbuck, the first time the middle name had been seen. He was known to be the only 40 something aged William in Nelson and married to Lydia, there was no confusion on who he was, but what it did mean was there was for the first time a secure connection to The Book, because on page 125 there in black and while was William Blakesley son of Joseph Clutterbuck and Frances. The IGI confirmed a marriage between Joseph and Frances in 1825 in Stonehouse, Gloucs. Added to this Sonja confirmed the Blacksley name came from Frances Drew’s mother’s maiden name so again another firm connection. The names are rare anyway, and the Drew name was not native to Gloucestershire except one line from which Frances Descends.

Although the spelling of Blakesley sees a couple of variants: Blakesely, Blacksley, Blackesly, the name is unique in the Clutterbuck line and it now firmly connects the New Zealand Li from William and Lydia to the Clutterbucks of Stroud. Within that group was Joseph Clutterbuck b1788 Rodborough (m Sarah Roberts 1817) the Civil Engineer, his son John William Clutterbuck the Wool Merchant, Captain Henry Clutterbuck of the Royal Lancaster Regiment b 1874 killed at Mons in France 1914 of whom the Times Paper wrote a spectacular epitaph on September 8th George William Clutterbuck b1858 the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary and author of In India/Bombay the Beautiful and his three achieving children: George William b1882 who appointed the chief assistant to the Clerk of the London Committee during the formation of the National Insurance Scheme, Sgnt Albert Ernest Clutterbuck b1883 of the 10th Middlesex Regiment and Millie Gertrude b1891 won 1st prize in Advanced English at Royal Society of Arts, and worked for the Air Ministry.

Figure 2 Joseph Clutterbuck b1788

Figure 3 John William Clutterbuck b1833

For more information on this and all other Clutterbuck Lines please email me direct: treemad@btinterent.com

Clutterbuck's Antarctic Expedition

2007-11-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

What's the thing with Clutterbucks and mountains?

Just when we thought we'd seen it all, when we read here about Brits Dan and David Clutterbuck climbing Mount Clutterbuck in the Canadian Rockies, we saw this news about another adventurous Clutterbuck from the UK.

Peter Clutterbuck is setting out this week on an Antarctic expedition aiming to climb some of the unclimbed peaks in the Ellsworth mountains to raise money for the cancer information charity Cancerbackup. He will be accompanied by Simon Garrod a former British Antarctic Survey commander and now a professional mountain guide.

Peter is raising money for Cancerbackup because of the support he has received from the charity when a number of close family members have been diagnosed with cancer. This includes his mother who sadly died from the disease and his wife, Bonnie who is currently receiving treatment for breast cancer.

Peter is an experienced mountaineer and sailor with previous expeditions including climbing in the Alps, Andes, Himalayas and Arctic Greenland and sailing across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

During the trip Peter will be relaying information back to the UK by satellite phone giving updates on his position, altitude and how the challenge is going. These will be posted on Cancerbackup's website every day at http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/antarctic

Bonnie Clutterbuck will be at home looking after their two sons, Richard (9) and Mike (14) and preparing for a great Christmas when Peter returns.

Peter Clutterbuck said, "This is a challenging expedition but I look forward to being home for Christmas with my family having climbed a mountain no-one has ever stood on before and having raised a good amount of money for Cancerbackup."

Bonnie Clutterbuck added, "Of course the boys and I will miss Peter while he's away but we know he's doing it for a great cause and he'll come back with some fantastic tales to tell of his adventures at the bottom of the world."

Kate Shanley, Head of Fundraising at Cancerbackup said, "We are always grateful to everyone who takes part in fundraising events on behalf of Cancerbackup whether it's organising a jumble sale, doing a parachute jump, running a marathon, or climbing huge mountains in the freezing cold of Antarctica."

Photos of Peter and Simon on previous expeditions are available on request.

Other challenges

If you're looking for a challenge which is a bit different from the well worn paths along the Great Wall of China or on the Inca Trail (though Cancerbackup provides those too) and would like to raise money for charity to help people with cancer Cancerbackup is the place to come.

Climbing the world's highest active volcano, mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador, riding on horseback through Mongolia, cycling through the Mekong Delta or skiing the Milky Way Challenge in the Alps are just a few of the charity challenges Cancerbackup can offer.

These give people the chance to explore spectacular locations all over the world, and raise money to help Cancerbackup provide information and advice to people with cancer and their family and friends.

For those with less time, or who are a little less adventurous, there are a number of shorter events in the UK and Europe which can be achieved over a long weekend including climbing Ben Nevis, trekking over lava fields in Iceland or scaling Mount Etna in Sicily.

Cancerbackup also offers the chance to take on other challenges such as white water rafting and parachuting, and if your idea of fun isn't included in our list of events, the charity can offer groups of 10 or more their own tailor-made expedition.

Notes:

1. Cancerbackup is the only national charity that specialises in providing information on all types of cancer.

2. All Cancerbackup services are free to cancer patients, their relatives and friends.

3. Cancerbackup Freephone Information Service: 0808 800 1234 (Mon-Fri, 9am-8pm). Cancerbackup Centres can be found in St Bartholomew's Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital, the London Clinic, The Christie Hospital, Ipswich Hospital, Nottingham City Hospital, Coventry's University Hospital and Jersey. The charity's website can be found at http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk.

4. Cancerbackup, as a charity, receives 54% of its funding from individuals, 11% from charitable trusts, 5% from grants, 14% from companies, 2% from investments and 14% from its trading company. Pharmaceutical companies contributed 9% of the total 2005/06 income.

5. In April 2006 Cancerbackup changed its name from CancerBACUP, so that the charity's name better represents the service the charity provides: information, understanding and support to anyone affected by cancer.

http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk

The Clutterbuck Family Map

2007-11-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

If you've arrived at this corner of the worldwide web because you're a Clutterbuck or by any other name a member of the Clutterbuck gene pool, you really should take a minute to leave your marker on the Cluterbuck Family Map.

This particularly cool guest map application is based on Google Maps, with all the features of "click and drag" maps, zoom in and out, from street level maps to satellite views.

Just "click and drag" the map to center on your part of the world map, and "zoom in" using the sliding scale on the upper left corner of the map to find your exact location in "street map view" before putting your precisely located mark on the map.

If you find you've made a slight error on your first try, just do it over again and our map editors will delete your earlier mark. It's easy and fun to leave your mark on the world.

Eventually, we hope to get to know all the Clutterbucks in the world. Why? We're all collaborating on a revision of the Clutterbuck Book.

Look who we've found so far.

UWO Mustangs Yates Cup 2007 Champions

2007-11-10T17:22:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, Ryan Clutterbuck 89

Clutterbucks on Clutterbuck Mountain

2007-08-04T22:50:00.000-04:00

by Dan Clutterbuck

Every year for the past 20 years my father, David Clutterbuck, has learnt a new sport. This year – to celebrate his 60th birthday – he decided to take up mountaineering. But rather than do his first outdoors climb on a simple slope in England, he opted to climb one of the most remote and inaccessible mountains in Canada’s British Columbia. Why? Because of its name – Mount Clutterbuck, which we discovered on this blog.

Named by the Canadian Government in the 1930s after an intrepid explorer, who wrote about British Columbia in the mid 1800s, Mount Clutterbuck lies in the centre of the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy. There are no roads and even rescue helicopters are not permitted to land. Grizzly bears, brown bears, mountain lions and wolverines, along with elks, caribou, mountain goats and other prey, are the only inhabitants. The explorer after whom it was named wrote a wonderful account of the area in 1887, suitably named '1887 BC', which we read as we followed some of their footsteps. As soon as my father and I saw Mount Clutterbuck on Clutterbuck.com, we were determined that we were going to climb it!

David and myself are both experienced walkers, having trekked previously in the Andes, Himalayas and other high altitude ranges. Yet just getting to the base of the mountain needed three days. For two of these, the bulk of our gear was carried on horseback – along with a chain saw to remove fallen trees from the path. For the third day, the ground was too rough for horses, so along with our two mountain guides, we were forced to “bushwhack” through boulder fields covered with a dense tangle of live and dead trees and alder bushes, with visibility in many places no more than two yards. The treacherous conditions were made worse by the heavy packs we were carrying, by the constant attention of vicious mosquitoes (David alone received around 200 bites on his back, through his clothing, that day) and the need to cross swollen, fast-flowing glacial rivers.

Base camp was beside a small, cold lake at the foot of Mount Clutterbuck’s glacier, a full kilometre beneath the summit. The ascent and descent took 13 hours of continuous effort. We set off in darkness, with head torches to guide our feet, and reached the edge of the glacier at dawn. After roping together for protection in case one of us fell into any of the crevasses, we forged ahead up the glacier. The last few hundred feet consisted of a steep rib of rock, which involved a combination of scrambling and full-on climbing - which is something David has never done outside of an indoor climbing wall. Finally, around 1pm, we achieved the summit and were sitting on the top of the world, both amazed and stunned that we had done it!

Many mountains in Canada have a summit register at the top, to record who has climbed it. Due to it's remoteness and technical difficulty, this mountain has only rarely been climbed and did not have such a register. In fact we could only find evidence of one other ascent (by the Kootenay Mountaineering Club). To record this - and our own substantial efforts in reaching the peak, we established a summit register and even left a flag with the Clutterbuck family cloth mark printed on it (the symbol printed on every bolt of cloth when our ancestors set up the first cloth mills in the UK’s West country, in the mid-1500s).

David says it was one of the toughest things he has ever done, and won’t be drawn about what he might do to celebrate his 70th!

To see a fabulous selection of the trip photos, please visit our online photo albums here and here.

If there are any other Clutterbucks out there who feel the inspiration to climb Mount Clutterbuck, I would be happy to discuss our trip and provide any advice where I can. (I can be contacted via my website at this link.)

In any case, a good place to start would be to get in contact with our guide - Matthew Reynolds (Box 1223, Jasper, Alberta, Canada,T0E 1E0 - Tel. (780) 852-5042). I can provide his email on request. As well, you can try contacting our outfitters at Findlay Creek Outfitters.

We highly recommend this trip to any budding mountaineers out there; it is one of the most stunning and remote mountains in Canada and, although technical enough to require a guide, well within the grasp of a moderately experienced hiker.

And we look forward to hearing from you.

Dan Clutterbuck and David Clutterbuck

Richard Lewis Clutterbuck, 1917-1998

2005-08-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and again in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings of the London Underground transportation network, we've often thought how much the world of counter terrorism has changed since the death Major General Richard Lewis Clutterbuck, whose career was devoted to defeating terrorism.

From War Zone to Classroom

Richard Clutterbuck, who has died aged 80, distinguished himself in two separate, if overlapping, careers. For 35 years he was a professional soldier, rising to the rank of major-general, and for the remaining 25 years he was an academic specialising in indeed almost inventing - the study of violence in politics.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Clutterbuck was a sapper, commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1937 after graduating in mechanical sciences from Cambridge. After Dunkirk, he went through both the Western Desert and Italian campaigns with no wound other than a front tooth knocked out when the driver of his scout car had to break suddenly and reverse.

I met him first in Germany towards the end of the second world war, when he arrived to take over 245 (Welsh) Field Company, Royal Engineers, the scruffy, piratical, matey territorial outfit in which I was a raw sapper. The Welsh mafia who really ran the company were at first suspicious of this English professional soldier, but were grudgingly impressed when, in the early days of peace, he hired a comely young German woman, Frau Schumacher, as his secretary.

Because he was a regular officer, Clutterbuck soon left us to go to a regular unit, 55 Field Company. This happened to be going to Trieste, and in retrospect this was the move which planted in him his future interest. Trieste was the site of the very first of the little civil wars and near-wars which have flared up since the big war. It had all the ingredients: political jockeying between Tito's communists and their enemies, ethnic tensions between Slavs; and Italians, and violence that included the assassination of a British brigadier.

The army helpfully sent Clutterbuck to a further 13 hotspots over the years, from Palestine (1947) during the Irgun Zvei Leumi's terrorist campaign, to a comic opera crisis in Anguilla.

In 1956, up against Chinese communists, Lt-Col Clutterbuck shed his rank badges to go on patrol as an ordinary soldier. As chief engineer Far East, 1966-68, Brigadier Clutterbuck put into practice in northeast Thailand the counter-terrorist philosophy he was gradually evolving.

Isolated villages were pre guerrillas. He got his sappers to build a road linking the villages to each other and the rest of the country. "Suddenly they had a bus service," he told me, "and there's a Latin American guerrilla saying that when the bus comes along it's time for the guerrilla to move out." His next job after Thailand was the top one, as Engineer-in-Chief (1968-70) at the Ministry of Defence. While in the Far East, however, he had started to read for a PhD in politics. In 1968, he enrolled at London University. It was pleasing to think of the E-in-C popping round to see his tutor in the Official staff car embellished with a major general's two stars on a crimson plate, I suggested. Sadly, not true, he said; he went by tube.

His last army post was back in the specialisation he had created for himself, as chief army instructor of the Royal College of Defence Studies, devoted to peacekeeping or "low-intensity Operations" as they were now termed. His Who's Who entry gave his recreations as "sailing, canoeing and the study of revolution". On retirement in 1972 he became Dr Clutterbuck, and marched straight into the Post of lecturer in political conflict at Exeter University.

Though the revolutionary fervour of the late 1960s had played itself out, students remained suspicious of military men. One piece of student journalism written ahead of Clutterbuck's arrival was so libellous that it had to be retracted. Once he was in. stalled, not surprisingly, his students found him refreshing, and judged his lectures unmissable. They found him enthusiastic and eccentric, with spectacles colour-coded according to their strength and a wallet so Often repaired with tape that the original leather had disappeared. He retired from teaching in 1982 but remained an honorary research fellow of Exeter. By now he was a world authority in his field, constantly in demand at conferences and the author of a score of books, beginning with Protest and the Urban Guerrilla in 1972, followed by Riot and Revolution in Malaya and Singapore, and gradually extending the borders of his subject to take in crime and other recourses to violence. His last work, completed shortly before his death, is Families, Drugs and Crime. Under the pen name Richard Jocelyn he also wrote a novel Across the River (1957), based on his experiences as a sapper officer in the Italian campaign.

In his last years he suffered heart trouble and feared that his mental powers might be endangered. But his family believe he had completed all that he wished to achieve. He is survived by his wife, Angela, their sons Peter, Robin and Julian, and three grandchildren.

Philip Purser

Paul Wilkinson Writes: Richard Clutterbuck's gift for teaching flowered at Exeter University, but his strengths as an educator reached far beyond the walls of the campus. There can be few senior military and police officers who have not at some stage benefited from Richard's mastery of his subject and his patience and good humour in tackling the most difficult questions.

As if these achievements were not enough for one lifetime, he also helped to pioneer the development of he Control Risks Information Service, briefing business and industry on political violence around the world. The success of this work can be gauged by the number of security companies and businesses which depend on the methods of security analysis and briefing which he developed.

Richard was that rare combination; an intellectual former soldier who made a major contribution to a fresh field of academic study and succeeded in the wider work of Public education through his books and contributions to the media.

Richard Lewis Clutterbuck, soldier and student of revolution, born November 22, 1917, died January 6,1998.

Extract from The Guardian, Friday 9th January 1998. page 16

Richard Clutterbuck wrote several books, and his work is often cited whenever the subject of terrorism and counter insurgency is studied. Dr Richard Clutterbuck, a pioneering scholar in the field and a former member of their advisory council, generously willed to the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews his invaluable collection of research materials, books and periodicals covering the whole field of terrorism and political violence.

In Terrorism in an Unstable World, "Richard Clutterbuck examines the changes in terrorist tactics since the end of the Cold War. He analyzes the possible threat posed by new terrorist groups which are the products of ethnic tensions. He explores how Islamic fundamentalism has become the primary motivating factor for terrorism and how the West has used improved technology to counter terrorist activity. He also explores the connection between terrorism and drug trafficking. of civil liberties. Clutterbuck argues for better international cooperation by the police, intelligence, and armed forces."

It's perhaps a tragic irony of history that Richard Clutterbuck, who devoted so much to the study of the Troubles, did not live to see the current peace in Northern Ireland. In "Northern Ireland: The Time And Place For Urban Terror CSC 1985" a paper by the US Marine Corps reprinted online at GlobalSecurity.org, the writer takes notes of Clutterbuck's thoughts:

As Richard Clutterbuck, a well-known author of several works on terrorism to include Northern Ireland, observes in Guerrillas and Terrorists, "All those who write (on Northern Ireland) are, with varying degrees of passion, partisans of one side or the other."1 In the midst of Clutterbuck's substantial contributions to the literature and his numerous revealing insights, this concise observation is perhaps his most profound. In one brief sentence he describes the emotions, the biases, the polarity and distorted objectivity which confront the uninitiated researcher and leave him dazed and wandering like the legendary Irish traveller wading through a pasture of Ireland's mythical "sleepy grass."

Give Me A Home Where?

2005-07-22T12:53:00.000-04:00

With the end of fox hunting, whatever is to become of Hornby Castle?

Good news from the Yorkshire Post Today, which published this wonderful article by Brian Dooks.

Julia and Roger Clutterbuck have introduced the bison – better known as the buffalo of Hollywood westerns – to Hornby Castle, near Bedale.

They are to be farmed alongside the castle's 180 red deer to produce high-quality meat being sold from the Clutterbucks' shop and to local restaurants.

Mr Clutterbuck said: "Bison meat is the most heart-friendly you can buy, with the lowest cholesterol level and very little fat. It has a very distinctive taste – sweeter and richer flavour than beef. Once you taste it you won't forget it."

So far Hornby Castle has six bison cows and one bull – the only ones in the North of England. There are only 124 in Britain.

They should not be confused with the European water buffalo, pioneered in North Yorkshire by Paul and Kate Langthorne, of Brompton, near Northallerton, which produce meat and milk to make mozzarella cheese.

Mr Clutterbuck said: "They are gentle giants, but they have a tendency to be single minded – a full-grown one weighs almost one ton and you can't tell them where to go. However, they are remarkable because they will not cross a line, whether it's a single strand of wire or a railway line."

The Clutterbuck family bought Hornby Castle in 1936 after the estate was broken up by the Duke of Leeds, whose ancestors had passed it down through marriage since 1179. Recently the land has grown arable crops but it is reverting to grassland under a 20-year restoration programme following a Countryside Stewardship agreement.

The bison have been established with the help of a Rural Enterprise Scheme grant. Yorkshire's first "native" bison should be born next summer and when the breeding herd is established they will be sold on to other farmers. Income will fund restoration of the historic parkland, which is attributed to a pupil of Capability Brown.

Mrs Clutterbuck said: "Much of the original parkland had been given over to growing arable crops or grazing stock. As a result it's been broken up with stock fences. Our plan is to remove these and return it to grass. Once this is under way, most of the area will be opened up for riders and walkers to enjoy and explore.

"It's difficult to get a clear picture what it would have originally looked like. The estate was broken up in the 1930s and most of the original documents were lost. What we are recreating is an approximation of the original, but it will be as close as we can get it and will certainly look very different to its current appearance."

Rural Development Service spokeswoman Rebecca Clarkson said: " It is exciting to see a combination of old and new coming together at Hornby Castle to provide it with new income for the future. The new business adds authenticity to the park and the bison are a novel introduction. Both will help fund restoration work and provide alternative income."

Bill Langhamer, of Business Link York and North Yorkshire, said: "This is a great example of diversification. Farming faces many challenges and the Clutterbucks have spotted a niche. They are building the market for heart-friendly meat and providing a novel new food."

We Get Postcards

2005-03-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

Recently, we linked to some historic Clutterbuck letters submitted by Timothy Walker, who has now sent in some interesting Clutterbuck postcards addressed over a hundred years ago to Clutterbucks in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

1). Dated 1902. Posted Goucester. To Miss Clutterbuck, Russell Street Stroud, Glos. A photo of Gloucester Cathedral with a personal note and signed N.R.P.

2) Dated 1902. Posted what appears to be SORN BRW. To Mrs A. Clutterbuck Russell Street Stroud Glos. A photo of National Gallery London. with a personal note and signed G.

3) Dated 1903. Posted Bridgewater Somerset. To Mrs Clutterbuck 2 Russell Street Stroud Gloucestershire. A photo of Cheapside London. With a personal note and signed M.

"These three postcards were purchased in the mid 1990s at a car boot sale by a friend of mine, who knew of my interest in the family of Clutterbuck," wrote Tim Walker, a Cluterbuck descendant and genealogy researcher who sent us these wonderful digital images.

Thanks so much, Tim. It would be interesting to learn from Clutterbucks who might be reading this blog, if they are perhaps related to the people who sent or received these postcards.

The Hounds of Hornby Castle

2005-03-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of supporters gathered to watch the 110-year old hunt and its harrier hounds meet at Hornby Castle, for the last time, before the ban on hunting with dogs came into force earlier this year.

Surrounded by his pack of baying dogs, whose ancestors had hunted throughout the area over 100 years, Master of the Hunt, Clive Richardson, also voiced his anger at the ban.

"I am heart broken, this is the end of everything - it is part of our life and our history. I cannot understand this government that wants to stop everything that is English," he said, according to local reports of the final hunt.

In the latter part of the most recent century the estate of Hornby Castle was owned by Roger Clutterbuck, Esquire, who figures among the contemporary people of distinction in the updated edition of Burke's Landed Gentry and was featured in Issue 26 of Country Life in 1989. R.E.H. Clutterbuck was actively involved in the historic sport of fox hunting, not only granting permission for the use of Hornby Castle for numerous hunts, but also as a judge.

But the Vale of Lune Harriers have had their historic last hunt and are now chasing scented fell runners, after the ban on hunting with dogs became the law of the land. Here's how one local paper described the end of an era.

The hunt gathered at Hornby Castle where the Vale of Lune Harriers officially began 110 years ago.

Clive Richardson, master huntsman who bred the hounds, said: "I have bred every hound here today and when I take them back to the kennel it will be for the last time."

However, the Vale of Lune Harriers will continue to hunt using a pack of the Three Counties Bloodhounds which follow a scent without killing the animal.

On Saturday a fell runner was given a 20-minute head start and the hounds were released. The bloodhounds followed the scent of the runner's shoes.

Mr Richardson said: "This is as close as you can get to replicating the hunt, but it is the unpredictability of the hunt that attracts people. "With the bloodhounds it is now just a cosmetic exercise."

Hounds used in the hunt will be continued to be bred at the kennels in Hornby to keep the original lineage alive.

Mr Richardson said: "Hunting has to survive until a day when the tradition can be reinstated."

Clutterbuck's role in the early days of NATO

2005-03-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

In a column written a few years ago, a Canadian journalist noted the diplomatic role of a Clutterbuck in the discussions leading up to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

It was a letter delivered by the delightfully named Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, the British high commissioner to Canada, that set things rolling. In that letter, British Prime Minister Clement Atlee formally proposed to [Canada's Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie] King a meeting with the United States on a North Atlantic alliance.

Talks got under way in earnest in Washington in the spring of 1948, and, from that point on, Canada, having done its usual matchmaking gig, moved obediently to the sidelines.

You can read more about Sir Alexander Clutterbuck here, too.

A Night at the Academy Awards

2005-02-27T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's Oscar Night in Hollywood. And you'll find a Clutterbuck behind the scenes for one nominee, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Harry Potter and his friends, Ron and Hermione, return for their third year at Hogwarts School, where Harry learns that a dangerous escaped prisoner is searching for him. While terrifying creatures known as Dementors patrol the school, Harry and his fellow students learn to defend themselves under the tutelage of a new professor who has his own dark secret to hide.

Working with Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson and Bill George and the Visual Effects team for this film was CGI Supervisor, Simon Clutterbuck of The Moving Picture Company (MPC). Here is Simon's filmography.

Victoria History of Gloucester

2005-02-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

There's lots of information of interest to Clutterbuck researchers in the Victoria History of the Counties of England, which is part of the greater British History Online.

A History of the County of Gloucester in volumes V, X, and XI, covering the period from 1100-1900, is probably a good place to start. But a quick search for Clutterbuck in this tome reveals countless references to the name.

Some researchers will enjoy poking around the website, looking for snippets of information about their ancestors and people from bygone days who share their very same name. Here are a couple of excerpts that caught my attention:

Manor and other estates of Leonard Stanley

A small farm-house, later called STANLEY DOWNTON FARM, west of the road at Downton, apparently occupies the site of the house of Richard Clutterbuck of Downton, yeoman (d. 1629), (Footnote 36) and was apparently rebuilt in the 1660s by his third son, John Clutterbuck (d. 1677). (Footnote 37) By 1701 it had probably passed to John's nephew, Richard Clutterbuck of Peckstreet House, King's Stanley, who then had property in Leonard Stanley, (Footnote 38) and in 1830 Richard's descendant, John Clutterbuck of Peckstreet House (d. 1839), owned Stanley Downton Farm with 68 a. (Footnote 39) The house is of coursed rubble with a gable and some stone-mullioned windows on the west; the windows on the east were replaced in the 19th century. In the late 19th century extensive stables in variegated brick were built north of the house.

Manor and other estates of Great Stanmore

The Clutterbucks had held property in the parish at least since 1749, when a messuage was granted to Thomas Clutterbuck, a brewer. (Footnote 4) In 1762 he had acquired the Vine at the top of Stanmore Hill and in 1763, on behalf of his son Thomas, a brewery which stood a few yards farther north on the opposite, western, side of the road. (Footnote 5) Although not large landowners in Great Stanmore, the family had acquired many buildings, including the Crown in 1769, the Black Horse on a lease in 1851, and the Load of Hay in 1868, as well as many wastehold parcels. (Footnote 6) The purchaser of the manor was described as of Great Stanmore in 1844, of Red Hall (Herts.) in 1847, and of Micklefield Hall in 1851. (Footnote 7) The manor passed in 1895 to his son Thomas Meadows Clutterbuck (d. 1919) and to his grandson Captain Rupert Clutterbuck (d. 1933), both of Micklefield Hall. (Footnote 8) Many manorial rights were sold in the 1920s, including those in the common and Stanmore marsh, for which Hendon R.D.C. paid £1,000 in 1929. (Footnote 9) The last rights were extinguished by Captain Clutterbuck's widow and her co-executor, in whom the manor was vested, in 1935-6. (Footnote 10)

In the Victoria History there are also references to the significant estates of Frampton Court and Newark Park, about which we will save much more for another day on the blog.

Clutterbuck Computer Clutter Challenge

2005-02-13T01:07:00.000-05:00

Andy was looking on the Internet for pictures of computer desks to see what kinds of environments people compute in. What did he find?

All these people proud of their sleek and stylish workspace. All these modders living their clutter-free G33k lives within their Sheng Fui'd desktops. A tidy mind is a productive mind.

He posted a picture of his own computer desk, and challenged others to come clean with photos of their own. Check out the competition for the most-cluttered computer desk as it enters Rounds 8 & 9.

If anyone should win the Clutterbuck Computer Clutter Challenge Cup, it really ought to be one of us, don't you think? You know who you are!

Blimey, Andrew Clutterbuck in Halifax, Canada, now has his own entry in the Clutterbuck Computer Clutter Challenge.

We Get Letters

2005-02-12T21:37:00.000-05:00

It's been nice receiving email from Clutterbucks and friends around the world, commenting kindly about The Clutterbuck Blog and the new group blogs for all the countries in which we discover members of our extended family. These days, email seems to be the preferred method of sending written communications to family and friends concerning matters of mutual interest.

It was not always so, of course. Imagine what it must have been like to have to write letters, and wait weeks, sometimes months, for a reply. So it was in the 18th century, when these Clutterbuck Letters were written in archaic words and a formal style that so vividly brings us back to a time and place of our ancestors. (They were handwritten, naturally, and only transcribed and typed in 1993 when discovered at the Northumberland Record Office by Timothy Walker, of Cheshire, when he was researching his Clutterbucks.)

Many thanks to Tim for sending us digital copies of the letters so that Clutterbuck reseachers around the world can share in his discovery. In his email, with these attachments, Tim tells the story of his personal connection to these letters and his ancestors:

You know of the extra-ordinary way I found these. My ancestor is Obadiah Clutterbuck and I found him also in The Clutterbuck Book published on the Web you pointed me to. Dr Henry James Clutterbuck of Llaneffni was a friend of my grandfathers and they corresponded, both losing brothers in South Africa. James Obadiah Clutterbuck married Elizabeth Reece in 1826 and they are both descended from them.

Wonderful research there, Tim. Thanks again for sharing your story.

Clutterbuck Family & Friends Blog

2005-02-06T01:09:00.000-05:00

Due to overwhelming demand—okay, just a little prodding from the blokes in New Zealand—we've redesigned The Clutterbuck Blog to facilitate participation by family members around the world.

For starters, we've set up weblog pages for all the countries known to harbour Clutterbucks. Of course, the United Kingdom is a good place to begin, but there's also representation in the colonies. Canada has made a good start, as has New Zealand. We're expecting lots of participation from Australia and the United States, and we know there are Clutterbucks in Ireland, Argentina, Germany, Taiwan, and Thailand. We didn't forget Poland, but we haven't put up their page yet. Surely, we'll hear about it if there's a Clutterbuck there, or anywhere else we've overlooked.

Why should anyone get involved with this? There are probably as many reasons to connect with family worldwide as there are Clutterbucks. Everyone has their own good reasons. A few of our reasons have been noted here before. Hopefully, we'll hear from all kinds of Clutterbucks who'd like to get connected and participate in one aspect of this project or another.

Some people are a bit shy and might just want to quietly read along, and that's okay, too. But we'd really like to hear from you, or receive a quick email just to say hello. We're really friendly folk, you know.

Beryl Clutterbuck

2005-02-05T14:06:00.000-05:00

One of the most amazing Clutterbucks ever was a woman who, for the tradition of taking a husband's name in marriage, we might not often remember as a Clutterbuck: Beryl Markham. Her life is the stuff of legends, books, and a movie.

Born in Leicester in 1902; died in Nairobi, Kenya, 1986. Beryl Markham, was a pioneer aviator and the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from London to Nova Scotia. She spent most of her life in Kenya, East Africa, where she was well known for her career as a bush pilot and for her success as a breeder and trainer of racehorses.

Beryl Markham (formerly Beryl Clutterbuck) was just three years old when her parents moved to Kenya. In 1923 she married a wealthy young Englishman named Mansfield Markham and moved to England and had a son, but the marriage ended and she returned to Kenya alone. Out there she was taught to fly by a big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton and became the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's licence and embarked on a career as a bush pilot. She was famous for her record-breaking, though near fatal, solo flight from London to Nova Scotia in 1936. Markham wrote a book about her adventurous life (West with the Night) that became a best-seller and of which Ernest Hemingway said: "She can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers."

EARLY INTEREST IN HORSES

Markham's father cleared land and started a farm at Njoro, about 70 miles from Nairobi, the new capital of Kenya. After trying to raise various crops, he discovered his true talent as a horse breeder and trainer. Horse racing was a popular sport and social activity among the colonists, and Markham's father began to supply horses for the Nairobi racetracks. Markham spent her childhood on the horse farm, learning to speak several African languages from the families her father employed. She also learned to hunt wild game with a spear, and her father taught her how to ride a horse. In the course of her adventurous childhood, she was attacked by a "pet" lion and once killed a deadly black mamba snake.

As a young woman, Markham started a career of her own as a horse trainer. She was so successful that one of her horses won the most prestigious racing prizes in Kenya when she was only 24. This success helped her to become one of the most socially prominent young women in Nairobi. She met a wealthy young Englishman named Mansfield Markham, whom she married in 1927. The Markhams then moved to England, where Beryl gave birth to a son, but within a short time the marriage ended, and Markham returned to Kenya alone.

FIRST FEMALE COMMERCIAL PILOT

Back in the colony Denys Finch Hatton, a well-known big-game hunter, took Markham flying in his airplane. Thrilled by the experience, she decided to learn how to fly a plane herself. Shortly after she began taking lessons, Finch Hatton was killed in a crash, an event that seems to have increased Markham's determination to become an aviator. Within just a few months Markham received her pilot's license, and she then became the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's license. Embarking on a career as a bush pilot, she flew alone delivering supplies, passengers, and mail to the remote, or "bush," regions of the country. Since there were no airfields in Kenya, Markham landed her plane in forest clearings or fields.

DARING SOLO FLIGHT

When Markham had been licensed for less than a year, she undertook a daring solo flight to England. She left Nairobi in a single-engine, 120-horsepower airplane that had no radio, no direction-finding equipment, and no speedometer. On the first day she flew northeast to Juba, a town in the Sudan, but was forced down a short distance from the airport by a storm and engine trouble. The next day she flew to Malakal on the Nile River. She tried to reach Khartoum, the capital city of the Sudan, on the following day but made it only halfway before the plane's engine failed. Landing in the desert, she repaired the engine as best she could. Local people helped her push the plane to harder sand, where she took off again and made it to a nearby airfield. The next morning Markham flew on to Khartoum, but the engine died twice along the way. In Khartoum it was discovered that the engine had a cracked piston ring. She was unable to get spare parts there, so she flew on to Atbara, where she replaced the piston.

When the engine continued to malfunction, Markham was forced to land outside Cairo, Egypt, in the middle of a dust storm that was so severe she could not see the ground as she was landing. After the British Royal Air Force repaired the engine for her, she flew on across the Mediterranean Sea, wearing an inner tube around her neck as a lifesaving device. Although bad weather plagued her flight across Europe, she finally landed safely in London. Her flight from Kenya had taken 23 days.

RETURN TO ENGLAND

After years of bush flying in Kenya and locating big game by air for safaris, Markham returned to England, where she hoped to win one of the big prizes that were being offered for record-breaking achievements in aviation. She had originally thought of competing in a race to South Africa with a former flying instructor, Tom Campbell Black, but decided instead to try for the prize of flying solo from London to New York. Such a flight had never been accomplished because it meant flying against the prevailing winds. In the Northern Hemisphere the jet stream travels from west to east.

When Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic, he had the wind pushing him on. Other aviators had attempted to make the flight from east to west but had fallen short of the mark. In 1932 Jim Mollison had flown from Ireland to eastern Canada; in 1934 John Grierson had flown the whole distance, but his trip took six weeks because he made four stops along the way.

Markham's aim was to fly nonstop from London to New York in order to show that commercial air service between the two cities was possible. For the trip she borrowed an airplane - a single-engine Vega Gull with a 200-horsepower engine - that could fly up to 163 miles per hour and that was fitted with extra tanks so it could travel 3,800 miles without refueling. The plane had no radio equipment, however, so contact with Markham would be impossible once she took off. Markham left London at 8:00 P.M. on September 4, 1936, facing a strong head wind, low clouds, and blustery weather. She was seen over Ireland at 10:25 P.M. ; at 2:00 the next afternoon she was spotted by a ship in the Atlantic; and at 4:35 P.M. she was reported to be flying over the tip of Newfoundland, the easternmost part of North America. Then she disappeared.

FIRST TRANSATLANTIC SOLO FLIGHT

A telephone call from a small town in Nova Scotia finally brought news of the aviator. She had survived her trip, but the plane had crash-landed in a peat bog. With the nose of the plane stuck in the mud, she had climbed out and greeted two fishermen by saying, "I'm Mrs. Markham. I've just flown from England."

Her flight across the Atlantic had almost ended in tragedy when the fuel line to one of the plane's tanks froze, causing the engine to fail and the plane to fall toward the ocean. Just before Markham reached the sea, the line warmed up and the gasoline started to flow again, allowing her to pull the plane up to safety. It was another frozen fuel line that caused her to crash in Nova Scotia.

Disappointed that she had not managed to fly all the way to New York City, Markham was afraid the flight would be considered a failure. In fact, news services carried the report throughout the world, and she was hailed as a heroine. In Nova Scotia a U.S. Coast Guard plane met her, and she co-piloted it to New York, where she met Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and rode in a motorcade through the city. Markham returned to England to find she had become a celebrity. She lived there for the next few years but did not take up flying again. Although she talked about entering another of the great air races, her interest seems to have faded after her friend Campbell Black was killed in the race to South Africa.

BEST-SELLING BOOK

In 1939 Markham moved to the United States. For some time there were plans to make a movie about her famous flight across the Atlantic. While the film was never made, she received an offer to write about her experiences. Her book, West with the Night, was published in 1942 and was favorably received. After reading it, the American writer Ernest Hemingway said, "She can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers." Appearing on 13 best-seller lists after it was published, West with the Night tells the story of Markham's childhood in Kenya, her unconventional career as a bush pilot, and her pioneering transatlantic flight. Eventually sales began to decline, and the book was forgotten.

For a number of years Markham lived in California, where she remarried and ran an avocado ranch. In 1952 she returned to Kenya and took up the career she had started thirty years before raising and training horses. From 1958 to 1972 she was the most successful trainer in Kenya, winning all of the major racing prizes and becoming a local legend. During Markham's final years she once again become a well-known personality. West with the Night was republished, becoming a best-seller, and she was the subject of a television documentary. She died in Kenya in 1986 at the age of 84.

DID MARKHAM ACTUALLY WRITE WEST WITH THE NIGHT?

According to The Lives of Beryl Markham, a biography by Errol Trzebinski (Norton, 1993), Markham did not write West with the Night. The real author was her third husband, Raoul Schumacher, who was a writer and journalist. Trzebinski interviewed friends of Markham who said that when the book was published they assumed she had not written it. She never showed any interest in writing, they say, and she did not even like to read; in fact, she began writing the book only after she met Schumacher.

Markham's friends recall Schumacher and Markham saying they were writing the book together; much of the manuscript, which Markham kept all her life, was in her husband's handwriting. Further proof is the book itself. It contains literary references that only Schumacher could have made and inaccurate descriptions of flying that Markham would not have put in her narrative.

Why, then, did Markham not tell the truth? Her friends think she may have intended to reveal Schumacher as the actual author, and that might explain why she kept the manuscript. Moreover, she may have been so caught up in the book's success when it was published that she could find no graceful way to say she had not written it. As many people have commented, however, the question of who actually wrote West with the Night may be irrelevant, since the book continues to be a classic account of growing up in Kenya.

This biographical note can be found in the "who's who" of her birthplace in Leicester, England, which takes this research from: Women in World History U·X·L® Biographies, U·X·L, 1996.

John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, briefly tells the romantic tale in an audio clip:

She grew up on a Kenya farm, learned to hunt with African boys, and was once mauled by a lion. Her schooling was minimal. She took up horse training in her late teens and flying in her late 20s. By then the beautiful Markham had married twice, mothered a son (whose father may've been the Duke of Gloucester), and was woven into the decadent, upper-class, expatriate English life of pre-war Africa. She was a friend of Isak Dinesen (played by Meryl Streep in the movie Out of Africa.) But the friendship suffered when Markham took up with the real-life Robert Redford character.

There are several good books about Beryl Markham, including her own West with the Night.

Sir Peter Alexander Clutterbuck

2005-02-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Sir Alexander was educated at Malvern College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He served with the Coldstream Guards in the First World War, was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in despatches.

He then entered the Civil Service and served in the Colonial Office from 1922 to 1928, during which time he visited Ceylon.

Sir Alexander then moved to the Dominions Office and was a member of the United Kingdom Delegation to League of Nations Assembly, 1929, 1930 and 1931. He was Secretary to the Newfoundland Royal Commission and visited Canada and Newfoundland in 1933. He paid a further visit to Newfoundland in 1938.

In 1939 Sir Alexander was appointed Deputy High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in the Union of South Africa.

In 1942 he was appointed Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, when he again visited Canada and Newfoundland, with the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Atlee. In 1946 he was appointed High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Canada, and served in that capacity until 1952. He was greatly involved in the diplomatic processes that resulted in Newfoundland joining Canada, as the tenth Province.

On November 25th, 1948, Sir Alexander gave an address to the Empire Club in Toronto, closing with remarks that ring as true today.

One of the things that gives me greatest encouragement at this time is the way in which good comes out of evil. And it is coming out. We are seeing formed before our eyes a great new unity of purpose, a new brotherhood, if you like, which sees itself manifested not only in the Commonwealth--and our relations in the Commonwealth have never been closer than today--but which embraces also that great neighbour to the south of us. It reminds me of the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, in one of his great speeches in the war. You will remember his remarking of the United States how increasingly we were mixed up together in our affairs, "It is a process", he said, "which, like the Mississippi, just keeps rolling on and nothing in this world is going to stop it". I think in that great unity and closer brotherhood lies our greatest safeguard for maintaining peace in the world, and our greatest guarantee we shall together enter that new age to which I have referred.

He received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree in 1951, at convocation of the University of British Columbia, and it was noted:

In a tense and troubled period Sir Alexander has brought to the duties of a most responsible position a sensitive and virile appreciation of those traditions of public service, in peace and in war, which we have inherited from the United Kingdom and which we are proud to share with the British Commonwealth of Nations, with the United States of America and with all nations that cherish freedom. I now present to you, Sir, for the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, a man who as soldier, public servant, and statesman has ordered his life in the spirit of those whose devotion we honour today. Sir Peter Alexander Clutterbuck.

A career diplomat, Sir Alexander went on to serve as the British Ambassador to Ireland from 1955-1959. At that time he was painted by Henry R. Craig in his work titled The Dublin Drawing Room.

Clutterbuck, Funeral Directors

2005-01-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

The website of L.W. Clutterbuck has a history of the family business.

In 1820 Frederick Clutterbuck (I) was a local blacksmith / builder / carpenter in Eastington, Stonehouse, Glos, who was also the local undertaker, mostly because of the nature of the business and was connected to people who owned horses, and could build coffins. He worked from premises on the Bath Road in Eastington, down the road from the Bath Road Garage, opposite the turning for Middle Street, but it has since been extended and changed.

Funerals at this time were local affairs. The coffin would be left in the home before the funeral at church, when it would be transported to church possibly by horse. Those who could not afford to hire a horse would have to carry it or wheel it on a bier.

This business passed through the generations, first to his son, Frederick (II). However, his [Frederick (II)] son, Wilfred was not interested in the family business, being more interested in trucks as a result of the war and therefore did not play a significant role in the funeral business. Therefore, the business passed to Frederick (II)’s grandson, Leslie Wilfred Clutterbuck where the business gets it’s name from today: L.W. Clutterbuck.

Leslie built up an impressive business as a builder and carpenter as well as undertaker. He had vehicles and equipment for building and was highly skilled. He also made many magnificent inventions for use throughout the business, some of which are still in use today.

At the same time, Lionel Workman, a local builder and funeral director operated in the area of Cam and Dursley. Leslie used to hire vehicles (including the bier) from Lionel for his business in Eastington. Lionel operated from and lived at premises in Chapel Street next to the Cottage Bakery, and stored a hearse at a garage at 26 High Street. When Lionel was taken ill in later life, he had no heir to naturally inherit the business or take over from him , and his only employee was not willing to take on the responsibility of running the business, and he therefore offered it to Leslie, having built up a professional relationship with him over the years. Leslie bought the business in 1958 and added to his business in Eastington by operating in both areas. In Eastington Leslie operated from Eastington where the building supplies were kept, and a hardware shop began to evolve at the premises at 26 High Street, Cam where the hearse was kept. His son, Kenneth joined the family business immediately after leaving school at 16, and moved to Cam to oversee operations there.

In 1959/60 Leslie was forced to relinquish the Eastington property and so additional premises were sought for storage and 17 High Street, a former slaughterhouse, was rented, and the necessary alterations made for this purpose. Such was Leslie’s skill, especially as a builder, that he made many alterations to the building himself, along with Ken and staff.

In 1975 Leslie retired and the business was transferred to Ken whom assumed full control continuing to build on the existing customer base. All the time, Cam and the surrounding villages were expanding and the average number of funerals conducted also increased. Therefore part of the store at 17 High Street was converted into a chapel of rest and although Leslie had officially he retired he helped convert it for this purpose. Also, the number, and types, of vehicles changed. Limousines were required, and so the family moved to Woodened Lane where 4 garages meant that all the vehicles could be stored safely. The space that was occupied by the hearse at the hardware shop now meant that the stock could be expanded.

No. 26 High Street was between the Cam Memorial Hall (no. 28) and a residential house (no. 24). Ken got to know the lady that lived there over the years. On the property was a garage of timber construction. Having built up a relationship with the neighbour Ken was allowed to park a Peugeot 505 in the garage. When the lady died Ken was quick to cease the opportunity of an offer of first refusal and purchased the house. This house was then completely redeveloped into a more substantial hardware shop, office, interview room, workshop and store, with ample parking and a single, brick-built, garage. At the same time Ken bought the freehold to the property at 17 High Street.

Ken retired in April 2001 after 40 years of working in the business, whereupon, the business became the ownership of his wife, Lynn and son, Jeremy. Lynn had always been a partner in the business and played an active role in some parts of it. After university Jeremy had been a civil service working in the defence sector as a decision consultant. The existing staff, a crucial part of the running and reputation of the business, stayed on. At around the same time Lynn’s second husband, Bob, took early retirement from his job in the Nuclear power industry and was able to play a major role in the business.

Woodend Lane was no longer available for garaging the fleet of vehicles (Hearse, Limousine, Estate car and Van) and so temporary garaging was found whilst an extension to the existing garage at 24-26 High Street was built to accommodate the whole fleet. A significant number of other investments were made to the business including introducing Information Technology to the office and overhauling the rapidly deteriorating hearse and limousine.

Because of the skills of Jeremy and Bob, the business took on a new consultancy dimension with both being able to sell their services back to their original employers. This also played a major role in the survival of the business by enabling the investment work to be funded without any outside financial assistance. At the same time they both enrolled in the Diploma in Funeral Directing, run by the National Association of Funeral Directors, not currently a requirement by law.

In April 2002 the business became a limited company with a view to transferring the business to the sole ownership of Jeremy. Future plans also include the modernisation of mortuary facilities, achieving Investors in People recognition and the introduction of new services. In June 2002, Jeremy and Bob passed the Foundation Module of the DipFD, and have moved on to the main part of the diploma.

Unrelated to Jeremy Clutterbuck—or maybe related somehow—is one David Clutterbuck in Toronto, Canada, who is a licensed funeral director in the Province of Ontario. Dave's a Pathologist's Assistant in the Office of the Chief Coroner for the Province of Ontario, where he assists with forensic autopsies.

Martin R. Clutterbuck

2005-01-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

Thailand might seem an exotic place to look for a Clutterbuck. The only member of the worldwide Clutterbuck family that we know of who has a connection to Thailand is Martin R. Clutterbuck.

He speaks Thai like a native, according to a colleague with whom he collaborated in the research for Siamese Cats: Legends and Reality. In fact, he had been translating the Cat Book Poems of Siam, written several hundred years ago, after being granted a research permit by the Thai Government when she got together with him to research the ancient feline breed from original manuscripts. Here's a review of that book.

Martin's an author or editor of several books and, most recently, a website about The Real Lives of Thomas the Tank Engine.

He's also a co-writer of Fodor's Exploring Thailand (4th ed now published), so he knows the country better than most. Here's a brief excerpt from that book, about which Martin adds, "I didn't write that passage, but it is all true."

Thailand has a huge amount to offer, endowed with resorts well-attuned to the needs of Western tourists as well as many places that are still remote in character. Visitors can get a good idea of the range of experiences by staying in Bangkok for a few days and taking a few side trips into the surrounding areas. Many stay on for months. The Thais' gentle and laid-back nature, coupled with the ease of getting around and making one's own discoveries, contribute to Thailand's popularity. This country has dazzling temples and some extraordinary historic sights. Beyond the great rice plains, where farmers bend over in their lampshade hats to tend the crops, rise mountains harboring hill-tribe cultures. In the south are some of the loveliest beaches anywhere, with squeaky white sands backed by lofty limestone cliffs and fringed with palm trees.

Thailand is its people: in spite of spiraling economic change, they have kept their traditions, festivals, and essential Thai qualities. It would take a great deal to change all that.

In the aftermath of the South East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami, our thoughts and prayers go out to Martin Clutterbuck in Thailand, and we hope to hear news from him in the near future.

Update: We received an email from Martin, on 7 January 2005, parts of which are copied here because there are many of us around the world who were hoping to hear that he was okay.

Thanks very much for you concern. Please rest assured none of us were in the tsunami danger zone. However, I have been involved in relief efforts through my day job in the PR department of Tesco Lotus, a supermarket chain, and I was greatly shocked at the devastation down South, which I know well and indeed wrote about in that guide you quote.

...

Just btw, I'm embarrassed up at the top there - there are more illustrious literary Clutterbucks: Dr Richard, the terrorism expert, and David, the management mentoring guru, who deserve profiles perhaps.

I did have the tree up to 5-greats grandaddy before it got cut off.

Happy New Year to all the other Clutterbucks, our allies and associates.

Martin and Bang-on Clutterbuck

Martin was kind enough to provide corrections and some better links to his books, which have been noted above. By reply email, we let Martin know that, indeed, we'll be profiling Richard Clutterbuck, David Clutterbuck, and less well-known folks in our worldwide family, in the weeks and months ahead. As always, we're glad to get more information and ideas for this scrapbook of a website about Clutterbucks. Best of all, we're happy to hear he was not in the area hit by the tsunami but is involved in the relief efforts.

Captain Cuthbert Clutterbuck

2004-11-18T20:49:00.000-05:00

Captain Cuthbert Clutterbuck was the hypothetical editor of some of Sir Walter Scott's novels, such as The Monastery and The Fortunes of Nigel. The Abbot is dedicated by the "author of Waverley" to "captain Clutterbuck," late of his majesty's—infantry regiment.

Captain Clutterbuck, a retired officer, employs himself in antiquarian researches and literary idleness, and is described in this excerpt about his pseudonym from Sir Walter Scott's The Monastery.

While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the village of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw or heard of. To give some individuality to this personage, he is described as a character which sometimes occurs in actual society--a person who, having spent his life within the necessary duties of a technical profession, from which he has been at length emancipated, finds himself without any occupation whatever, and is apt to become the prey of ennui, until he discerns some petty subject of investigation commensurate to his talents, the study of which gives him employment in solitude; while the conscious possession of information peculiar to himself, adds to his consequence in society. I have often observed, that the lighter and trivial branches of antiquarian study are singularly useful in relieving vacuity of such a kind, and have known them serve many a Captain Clutterbuck to retreat upon; I was therefore a good deal surprised, when I found the antiquarian Captain identified with a neighbour and friend of my own, who could never have been confounded with him by any one who had read the book, and seen the party alluded to.

Editor's Note: emphasis added.

Who the dickens was Lady Maria Clutterbuck?

2004-11-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

One blogger's Incessant Ramblings includes this aside:

(On a completely unrelated note, if I ever write a book or screenplay, I will give all of my characters British last names. They are absolutely the best last names to be found anywhere. Don't believe me? Just look at the cast and crew for the latest Harry Potter film: Egerton, Clutterbuck, Broadbent, Northcutt, Twyford, Eggleton, Daubeny, Appleby, Kirkpatrick -- I'm not making this up, people! Ever wonder why Dickens is so popular? Last names! This is pure literary gold. Hello-ooo! Shakespeare? See, I told you.)

Speaking of Dickens, did you know he wrote a cookbook under a pseudonym, according to newly discovered papers?

It is reported that What Shall We Have For Dinner? was written by Dickens under the name Lady Maria Clutterbuck.

For decades academics thought Dickens's wife Catherine wrote the book. But papers found by the great-great grandson of Mark Lemon, a Dickens's family friend, proves different.

The papers, written by Lemon's daughter Betty, describe how Mr and Mrs Dickens would retreat to the study to write down the recipes, reports The Times.

And she describes how: "Various recipes were discussed and eventually a cookery book was compiled. The book created quite a sensation, but how much greater it would have been if had been known that Charles Dickens himself had a finger in the pie. The secret was, however, strictly kept."

Tim Matthews, 73, Lemon's relation told The Times: "I was going through hundreds of pages of family memories during a clear out to make space in the house.

"I've had them since 1976 when my grandmother died but never got round to sorting them out. Some are quite scurrilous. When I read the scraps about Dickens and the cookery book I was very excited."

Peter Ackroyd, a Dickens biographer, said: "This is very exciting. It is quite rare to find a new document about Dickens. It was understood that Catherine Dickens compiled a cookery book so evidence that Dickens had a hand in it is new."

The book was published in October 1851 and caused a sensation with its recipes for giblet soup, lamb's head and cold custard pudding.

Clutterbuck and Lees, men and mountains

2004-11-12T05:33:00.000-05:00

Clutterbuck and Lees

"Clutterbuck and Lees stand guard over the head of Granite Creek" is the caption of this wonderful photograph taken by modern adventurers on "a climbing expedition in the old style" in 2004. I wonder if they knew of the men after whom these mountains are named, and their connection to this landscape.

W.J. Clutterbuck and J.A. Lees, two early British "tourists" made their way to western Canada shortly after the CPR railroad was completed. Their book, A Ramble in British Columbia, BC 1887, is revealing both of the geography and inhabitants of the upper Columbia in the year 1887. Lees and Cluterbuck spent August through October exploring the waters of the upper Columbia and Kootenay rivers. Their account of dry fly fishing is the first record of using that fly-fishing method in Canada. The book also records the running of chinooks, now extinct, and the spawning grounds on the Upper Columbia River.

These English gentlemen travelled the world in search of fly-fishing adventures, and also wrote Three In Norway by two of them, a few years earlier than their expedition to the Canadian Rockies, after which two mountains are named for them.

In 2004, a group of Canadian adventurers recorded their own experiences climbing Mount Clutterbuck, and hiking the area that remains a pristine wilderness, much the same as it was when Lees and Clutterbuck were there over a hundred years ago. Here's a photograph of them descending the Clutterbuck Glacier.

This trip was a grand adventure into a remarkable, very seldom visited, wilderness area – easily the largest area in BC I have seen without a clearcut. The climbing was generally excellent on wonderful granite, our weather was spectacular with 9 consecutive sunny days, and new friends made the experience complete.

William Bryan Clutterbuck

2004-11-09T17:56:00.000-05:00

This wonderful historic photograph of William Bryan Clutterbuck was submitted by Kirstin Duffield, 3G Granddaugher of this gentleman. The newspaper clipping from the January 12, 1907 edition of the Gloucestershire Graphic was kindly sent to her by David Dedeckere, another 3G Grandson, (through William, Henry and George Clutterbuck; the latter moved to the United States). To view an enlargement of this photograph, just click on the image once, then again for an even larger picture.

Please share your historic Clutterbuck photos.

The Clutterbuck Story

2004-11-08T09:32:00.000-05:00

Written by Edna Clutterbuck, nee Sloan

James Clutterbuck was born October 5, 1873 in Grantham Licolnshire, England. As a Barr Colonist he came out from England in April 1903 on the S.S.Manitoba. While on the ship they picked their homesteads. Jim in England was a skilled tradesman in wood and stone carving, a draftsman and a modeller. He was advised by his London doctor to go to a drier climate as he had a cough caused by the stone dust on his lungs from working on old Abbeys in England.

When they picked their homestead, this location later became part of the Durness district. At that time the railroad came as far as Saskatoon and now Clutterbuck joined forces with three other fellows. They bought four oxen, a wagon, ploughs and other supplies before setting out for their homesteads in mid April. The trip over the bald prairie, was really tough going, over sloughs and fording the Battle River. However the four oxen could handle it better than many horse outfits.

They pitched their tents one mile north of the present Lloydminster site. Within a few days their group set out with a guide to find their various homesteads. Clutterbucks’ homestead proved to be nine miles northwest of the meridian. They lived in tents until Jim built a log house with a sod roof. This was to be the shelter for the group for the first winter. In the summer of 1903, Jim and his neighbour Cowell, turned their first furrow.

The winter of 1904, Jim went to Winnipeg where he cut stone in Trindall Quarry for the building of the Union Station. When he returned to his homestead he and the other colonists, together with the early settlers, began to form communities. The Barr Colonists triggered off an influx of settlers in 1905. At this time the railroad arrived in Lloydminster, making it easier for supplies to come in. In 1908, a school was built, calling it Durness under the leadership of John Campbell. The name came from Durness, Scotland, where the Campbells had lived.

In the spring of 1909, Jim Clutterbuck received a message delivered by horseback from the Superintendent of Buildings for the province of Alberta. The Parliament Buildings were being built and they had written to England seeking a carver, a modeller and a draftsman. They were informed that a man by the name of James Clutterbuck was one of their best apprentices with all those qualifications and he had immigrated to Canada. They had traced him through Immigration. James carved the Provincial Coat of Arms over both entrances of the old Court House. In 1910, he started on the Parliament Buildings. He sketched many of the ornamental caps on the pillars and did all the carvings over the doorways.

In 1910 James married Isabel Campbell, a neighbour girl. The winter of that year he cut wreaths out of a sandstone quarry in Calgary. These were fussed on to the outside walls of the Parliament Building. Being of a soft sandstone, they most of them wore away over the years. Just a few remain on the west wall. James leased his homestead to Cowell allowing him to remain in Edmonton to complete the finishing touches to the elaborate building. One of his last jobs there was the British Coat of Arms which still stands over the House Speakers head in the Legislature. Then he returned to his homestead to begin farming. James and Isabell had two children, Mary born on the farm in 1913 and Thomas born in the Lloydminster Hospital in 1914.

Mary married Kenneth Bain of the Golden Valley District in 1936 and they had four children, Isabell, Betty John and Donalda. In 1947 their father, Ken died. Thomas married Edna Sloan in 1938 in Lloydminster. Edna and Tom carried on farming while raising three children. Glen married and is living in Kamloops B. C., Linda is married and living in Penticton, B. C., and Bob is married and living in Calgary. Tom’s father, James, and his neighbour, Stanley Inge, who lived three miles away died on the same day, July 1st, 1954.

Tom served as School Trustee for twelve years and five as Divisional Trustee on the Vermilion School Division. Durness school was closed and Tom and Edna owned and operated the Durness school bus from 1956 to 1972. In 1963, Tom took a job as operator on husky Automation pipeline, still operating the farm and with Edna driving the bus. Tom resigned from the pipeline, sold the farm and moved into Lloydminster. He started a city school bus service while still driving the Durness bus. In 1974, Tom sold the bus service and worked for the Hardware manager in Fisher’s Store. Edna worked at Sandy’s News until they moved to Penticton, B.C. in 1978. Tom’s sister, Mary died in 1979. Tom was seventy eight when he died in 1992.

Tom’s widow, Edna wrote this story in the year 2000. She included two pictures of James Clutterbuck with his team of oxen on the homestead, which can be seen in the story as it was originally published on Lloydminster.Net.

Please share your Clutterbuck stories.

Butchers, Bakers, Candlestick Makers

2004-10-30T01:36:00.000-04:00

doctor, lawyer, teacher, bassist, photographer, actor, actress, real estate executive, blacksmith, bowmaker, artist, builder, carpenter, plumber, priest, minister, professor, writer, mentor, undertaker, forensic pathologists assistant, hair stylist, baseball player, architect, investment banker, special effects filmmaker, cinematographer, archeaologist, engineer ...

Let us know what you do, Clutterbuck.

Andrew Lincoln

2004-10-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

You couldn’t move for hype about Love Actually when the film opened last December. However, Andrew Lincoln, who played Mark, the man secretly in love with his best friend’s wife, in Richard Curtis’s monster box-office hit, couldn’t be doing with all that. "I’m not particularly good at all that pomp and circumstance," the actor sighs. "So when the film came out I was on Bondi Beach learning to surf. I needed time out to find out what I wanted to do and not feel so in thrall to this business.

"That’s one of the problems of being an actor. You feel constantly at other people’s beck and call. I thought, ‘wait a minute, it’s not like people don’t know who I am’. I realised I could take time out and take stock. Whatever walk of life they’re in, people need to do that from time to time."

So, who is this Andrew Lincoln?

Lincoln, whose father is a civil engineer and whose mother is a nurse, was born in Hull, before moving to Bath at the age of ten. He attended Beechen Cliff, a single-sex comprehensive where his love of acting was first ignited. He recollects that "the maths teacher got me off the rugby pitch and into auditions for Oliver! I played the Artful Dodger and our sister school was at the bottom of the hill, so rehearsals were the only time we got to meet up with the girls - that was a bonus." On leaving school, Lincoln was accepted at RADA and soon after landed the part of Egg in This Life.

The only fly in the ointment was that his agent was adamant that he had to change his name from Andrew Clutterbuck. "He told me it sounded ridiculous, like I was some Dickensian poorhouse worker," recalls the actor now known as Lincoln. "My dad was really upset and my grandad didn’t speak to me for a while."

Family Tease

2004-10-22T04:37:00.000-04:00

Creating family trees can be fun. And while it's fun to trace your ancestors, it's even more fun to create descendants.

William Clutterbuck, of Durex parent company SSL, said: "Durex is Britain's favourite brand of condom and this is an extension of that brand. We don't just want sex to be safer, we want it to be more fun.

"We have been working with Boots for some time to develop a range of toys and massagers, which we hope to bring to the High Street some time in the New Year."

I suppose we could get family discounts.

The Worldwide Clutterbuck Family Gathering

2003-01-02T01:03:00.000-05:00

Clutterbuck, maybe it's your name or the name of a close family member, distant relative, or ancestor. Many websites provide information about genealogy and family trees. Serious genealogists are really passionate about their research of family lineage, and there are Clutterbuck genealogists around the world who are cooperating to record One Great Family Tree for Clutterbuck. Some of us find that searching our roots and learning our family histories is an interesting hobby. We might even be able to help you trace your family tree and get connected with your roots.

But many of us are more interested in family relationships in the here and now and would like to reconnect with family members who may have become disconnected over time and space in this modern world. These days, more than ever, folks appreciate the value of family in their lives.

Fortunately, the Internet provides a perfect technology to make such connections possible and to keep us involved with each other as a family. Using the power of the Internet, people are finding long lost relatives. Some are discovering relatives they didn't even know of. Many of us are forming new friendships and closer relationships with family members we can't get together with as often as we'd like.

So, this is a special place on the Internet for a continuous worldwide Clutterbuck family gathering. Like all family gatherings, you never know who will show up. But it's always fun because everyone brings something unique to the party. At family get-togethers, everyone says, "We should do this more often." Here, we do it all the time.

Clutterbuck.org is a work in progress. In addition to The Principal Branches of the Family of Clutterbuck, the book which is now posted on this website, there are links on Clutterbuck.org to websites for famous Clutterbuck estates and websites of various Clutterbuck family members. There's also a link to a "Clutterbuck Blog" that will have regular posts of "stuff about Clutterbucks you might like to know." And we'll soon be adding a Clutterbuck Forum that will provide a place online where everyone can get together to discuss what's going on in the family worldwide.

Special projects that we hope to facilitate with Clutterbuck.org are:

1. One Great Family Tree for all Clutterbucks from the beginning of recorded history to the present day family around the world, for the benefit of future generations.

2. Family Gatherings of Clutterbucks in various countries around the world. We'll help with these in any way we can. As much as we'd all like to get together more often, it's not always possible with many family members living in faraway places. To strengthen the bonds of extended families, and to build new connections, we've developed a system of "group weblogs" for each country in which we find members of the Clutterbuck family, worldwide. Check out the Clutterbuck group blogs listed by country name on the right ----->

3. The Worldwide Clutterbuck Family Gathering in 2015 in Gloucestershire, England. This great gathering of the family will take time and cooperation to organize, and will build on the experiences of the various regional gatherings in the years to come, beginning with a Clutterbuck Gathering in New Zealand in October, 2004.

4. The publication of a new Clutterbuck Book, building on the research for The Principal Branches of the Family of Clutterbuck, published in 1923. We hope to have this book completed and distributed to all members of the Clutterbuck family, free of charge, as part of the celebration of the reunion of the Clutterbuck family in Gloucestershire, England, in 2015, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Clotterbooke, from whom many of the Clutterbuck family can trace their family trees.

We welcome the participation of everyone interested in this Clutterbuck.org project.