The Stewart-Smith and Pilditch Connection

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Phyllis Stewart-Smith, though almost twenty years younger, was Grannie's greatest friend in later years. They had met, I should imagine, in Weybridge, named in www.thepeerage.com as the residential location of Major Dudley Stewart-Smith, and certainly where Robert and Hannah Waddell lived during the Second World War.

There followed an extremely warm involvement between the two families, from which my dysfunctional corner of the Waddell family, with unofficial pariah status, was sadly excluded. However, my wife Sonia and I do retain a very happy memory of a visit to Phyllis Stewart-Smith at her flat in Harley Street, probably in the late 1960's, soon after she had completed an extended – and unaccompanied – world tour.

And it's nice to think that contact is now being re-established, as a result of piecing together all the scattered internet records into coherent form – and the extraordinary coincidence that Alison née Dalgleish, the wife of a much-admired colleague of mine, should happen to have attended the same school (Farlington, in Horsham) as Felicity née Pilditch.

Following a recent (Dec 2020) contact from a very pleasant descendant of James Cautley Hamilton, I've dug a little deeper and also rather further back. Though the connection with (A) hasn't so far been established, I've tentatively suggested a plausible possibility. If the link is confirmed, the family superstar would undoubtedly be the very remarkable Col Sir Proby Cautley.

Col Sir Proby Thomas Cautley KCB
(3 Jan 1802 – 25 Jan 1871)

The emergence of the aggrandising hyphen is identified!

#	Individual	Spouse / Partner	Family
‑6	Rev Thomas Cautley (1756 – 13 Jul 1817) son of Rev Thomas Cautley (1732 – 1796)	Hester Bluitt (1776 – 1798)	Hester Cautley (1796 – 1872) Rachel Elizabeth Cautley (b 1798)
‑6		Catherine Proby (1774 – 1830)	Henry Cautley??? (1798 – 1874) Charles William Cautley (1800 – 1801) Col Sir Proby Thomas Cautley (3 Jan 1802 – 25 Jan 1871) Catherine Maria Cautley (1803 – 1878) Rev George Spencer Cautley (1807 – 1880) Arabella Louisa Cautley (1808 – 1865)

‑5	Henry Cautley (1798 – 1874)		Henry Cautley (1837 – 1897)
‑5	James Smith (1787 – 1841)	Mary Ann Evors (1788 – 1870)	Charles Smith (b 1811) Mary Ann Smith (1812 – 1881) James Smith (b 1812, twin?) Colquhoun Smith (1816 – 1853) Elizabeth Smith (b 1823) Alexander Stewart Smith (3 Apr 1827 – 1859) Georgiana Smith (1828 – 1899) Ester Smith (1833 – 1879)

‑4	Henry Cautley (1837-1897) of Burton Pidsea	Mary Ellen Strother (1837-1892)	Katherine Cautley (28 Oct 1866 – 1925)
‑4	Alexander Stewart Smith (3 Apr 1827 – 1859) of London and Hong Kong	Susanna Jane Laming (9 May 1831 – 1891) her first marriage	Dudley Cautley Stewart-Smith (3 Feb 1857 – 9 May 1919)

‑3	Sir Dudley Cautley Stewart-Smith (3 Feb 1857 – 9 May 1919)	Katherine Cautley (28 Oct 1866 – 1925) (m 21 Dec 1892)	Maj Dudley Cautley Stewart-Smith (12 Oct 1894 – 1957) Lt Ean Kendal Stewart-Smith (10 Jan 1907 – 1964) banker, Chamberlain of London (1962 -) Ellen Sylvia Stewart-Smith (1896 – 16 Jun 1922) Millicent Jocelyn Stewart-Smith (12 May 1899 – 1942) =Patrick Swinglehurst Hamilton (1887-1953) (m 17 Dec 1919) Katherine Cicely Stewart-Smith (9 Dec 1904 – 1966)

‑2	Maj Dudley Cautley Stewart-Smith (12 Oct 1894 – 1957)	Phyllis Luson (b 31 Oct 1900 or 1901) (m 1923 London)	Phyllis Jean Stewart-Smith (b 1 Nov 1925, Calcutta) Priscilla Stewart-Smith (b 1931, Ceylon?) Geoffrey Stewart-Smith^{1, 2, 3} (28 Dec 1933, Ceylon? – 13 Mar 2004)

‑1	Phyllis Jean Stewart-Smith (b 1925 Calcutta) Memoir	Sir Philip John Frederick Pilditch^1, 2 3rd Bt (11 Aug 1919 – 11 May 1954) (m 2 Jun 1948)	Frances Jean Pilditch (b 14 Jun 1952) Felicity Mary Pilditch (b 21 Oct 1954)
‑1	Phyllis Jean Stewart-Smith (b 1925 Calcutta) Memoir	David Smith (m 1977)

0	Frances Jean Pilditch (b 14 Jun 1952) god-daughter of Frances Maskell (née Waddell) and therefore my god-sibling!	George Phillips Yeats (m 1978)	Frederick Xavier Yeats (b 1983)
0	Felicity Mary Pilditch (b 21 Oct 1954)	Richard Austin (m 1975)	Nicholas Charles Austin (b 1982) Charlotte Susannah Frances Austin (b 1985) of whom Alison Bright is godmother!

There are tantalisingly few historical glimpses of the Luson family into which Grannie Waddell's great friend Phyllis was born at the turn of the 20th century (her mother's maiden name was Bristow).

She had a brother Hewling – indeed there was a family tradition that all the first-born sons of the Luson family should bear this name, in remembrance of a tragic episode in the aftermath of the Duke of Monmouth's unsuccessful rebellion against James II in 1685 and the reprisals orchestrated by the loathsome Lord Chief Justice, George Jeffreys. "It wasn't what he did, it's the way that he did it", that earned him undying notoriety, even in the more sober assessments of a later age.

(See also Memorials of Baptist Martyrs, With a Preliminary Historical Essay; J Newton Brown, ISBN #1-57978-916-1; pp 244 – 269 "Benjamin and William Hewling")

And there are records of a Hewling Luson, on whose Gunton estate fine white clay was discovered in 1756, which led him to inaugurate the Lowestoft Pottery Company that phoenix-like flourishes to this day. He sold the estate shortly afterwards for the princely sum of £16,000.

There is evidence on the internet of a major genealogical survey of the Lusons, but scant details as to how it might be consulted:

The Luson Lineage, 1225 – 2008; Martin D Griffiths, Priscilla Stewart-Smith and Lynne B Mace, publ 2009

Robin Waddell11 February 1945 – 26 April 2024

The Stewart-Smith and Pilditch Connection

Strand A

Strand B

Strand C

Robin Waddell
11 February 1945 – 26 April 2024