Henry Lytton Cobbold

What lovely tributes to my father we have received!  Thank you to the so many who have sent warm condolences and happy memories of David.  He died at 1.20pm on Monday 9^th May at home at Park Gate House surrounded by his family.  As many of you know, he had not been well for some years.  He had been suffering from Lewy Bodies Parkinsons, and we had long lost the greater part of his wonderful mind, good humour and bonhomie.  Although the spark was still there, and there has been little I have treasured more in the last few years than to see his face light up when visited by his family and friends.

David was born in London in 1937, but came to live at Knebworth House on the death of his grandfather, Victor, in 1947.  Both his grandfather and his parents, Kim and Hermione, had looked to pass the house to public institutions to ensure its survival.  It had been refused, its liabilities too onerous.  But at the end of the 1960s, David persuaded his parents to let him and his wife Chryssie take on the challenge by opening up the house, gardens and park to day visitors and for events.  Through their hard work and perseverance Knebworth House and Park was no only saved from destruction and disassembly, but quickly gained national recognition as a treasured historic house and tourist destination, and then international recognition through the record-breaking series of legendary rock concerts that they spearheaded and hosted from 1974 onwards.

Standing for Hertfordshire in the European elections in 1979, and made a Deputy Lieutenant of the county in 1993, David was always a keen supporter of his local community.  Having been involved with Bowes Lyon House Youth Centre in Stevenage in its early days, he was one of the founding members and long-standing Patron of the Stevenage Community Trust.  Amongst his many contributions to the Parish of Knebworth, he is perhaps best remembered for his long Presidency of the Knebworth Twinning Association, for which he signed the charter at Knebworth House in 1990.  His enthusiasm for this initiative is clear in the accompanying photograph, which also shows him sporting an injury from, I suspect, his other great passion, jousting.  Having given a home to a jousting school at Old Knebworth Stables in the 1970s, he himself became the country’s oldest practising jouster, galloping at tilt in front of Knebworth House well into his seventies.

The 18^th generation of the Lytton family to live at Knebworth House, David’s unique legacy will live on in the home he loved and worked so hard to preserve.  There is no better expression of this than in the words of his great-great-grandfather, Edward Bulwer Lytton – and a personal favourite quote of his,

Ah! Happy he, whose later home as man
Is made where Love first spoke, and Hope began,
Where haunted floor dear footsteps back can give,
And in our Lares all our fathers live.  

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Last month I mentioned the Rex Whistler drawing that has been revealed, rather incongruously, in the middle of Knebworth House’s Indian collection (from the Lytton family’s time in India in the 1870s and the 1920s).  I should also encourage you to come and see the Indian collection, which has been beautiful reorganised in our new exhibition space by our Archivist Jill Campbell.  This collection also recently revealed a story previously unknown to us.  A visitor named Rukshana Master was thrilled to discover in one of our display cases a lovely embroidered cap that she recognised as having been made by her great-great-grandmother Dosebai Cowasjee Jessawalla.

Dosebai was born in 1832 and was known as the first Indian girl to receive an English education.  She presented the cap to my great-great-grandmother Edith Lytton in Calcutta on 14^th March 1878, after Edith had praised a similar cap worn by her son.  Dosebai, who travelled all over the world, made a cap of the same design for King Edward VII that she presented to the King at Windsor in 1907.  Rukshana presented us with a book she has written about her great-great-grandmother, which tells the story of her lovely embroidered caps, entitled ‘A Cap for a King’.  How wonderful that over a hundred years later stories like this can suddenly come to light.  Knebworth House is truly a treasure house of stories.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

I hope you enjoyed a visit Knebworth House on Parish Open Day, and saw for the first time our revised exhibition space.  Did you notice the sketch on the wall that was uncovered when we removed the old 1970s Delhi Durbar tent effect that was the basis of the old exhibition?  Even though the sketch does not relate to the theme of the room, we have chosen to leave it uncovered and to tell the story of how it came to be there.

On the weekend of Saturday 15th July 1939 the British artist, Reginald John ‘Rex’ Whistler, came to stay at Knebworth House as a guest of my great-grandparents Pamela and Victor Lytton.  During his stay, Whistler made plans to paint a large crucifixion scene for St Mary’s Church.  After lunch, he popped into what was then an old Rackets Court – with an idea of making it his studio – and sketched these figures on the wall to illustrate his ideas.

Whistler could not start the painting at that time as he was working on a room at Mottisfont in Hampshire, but his thank you letter to Pamela reveals how excited he was to get started, and gives an idea of the Crucifixion scene he envisaged.  Sadly, he never got to return to Knebworth, as he was killed in action that same July week five years later.  If Easter takes you to St Mary’s, consider how the church would look with this remarkable Easter scene on the wall.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@henrycobboldkh

Spring!  Weddings, at last, are picking up again at the Barns, after two years of restrictions.  In that time we have welcomed a new catering company to Knebworth Park, RA Venues.  If you are planning an event and haven’t been to the Barns for a while, do get in touch and see the exciting changes Alice and the new team have made.  We are looking forward to our daughter’s wedding there in a few weeks’ time.

Our daughter is getting married on the same Spring weekend as both her great-grandparents and her great-great-grandparents.  So she was interested to see this front page photograph of the former, Hermione & Cameron, from the Daily Sketch on Wednesday January 15, 1930.  It is next to a photograph of the Queen, with that familiar expression that we still see her wear today, 92 years later!  Who could have guessed that 33 years later Cameron Cobbold would become her Lord Chamberlain, and 70 years later she would have become our longest reigning monarch.

Along with weddings, this Spring also heralds the return of our Parish Open Day, which returns to its traditional date in March.  “Spring!  Spring!  Spring!”  Come join us on Sunday 27^th.  “The obvious reason, is because of the season!”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@henrycobboldkh

It is the time of year – and the years of our time – that many of us are reaching into the medicine cabinet for the Beecham’s Powders.  The travelling salesman Thomas Beecham opened his first factory ‘for the rapid production of medicines’ in 1849 in St Helens, Lancashire.  His son Sir Joseph Beecham expanded the company to such success that he entered into an agreement with the Duke of Bedford to purchase the Covent Garden estate for £2,000,000.  Sir Joseph died with more than half of this amount outstanding in mortgage, and his two sons, Sir Thomas, the renowned conductor, and Henry were left to sell off property to find the remainder of the money.

During this time – the early 1920s – Henry Beecham, ‘wholesale druggist’, in his early 30s, rented Knebworth House with his wife Ethel, five-year-old daughter Helen, four-year-old son Joseph, and newborn Henry.  Their household comprised Alice, a ‘trained nurse’; Ethel, a ‘children’s nurse’; Louise, a ‘housekeeper’; Margaret, a ‘personal maid’; and Margaret’s husband George, a ‘motor mechanic’.  How do I know this?  Because last month the 1921 Census was published.

The Beechams seceded control of the family company soon afterwards, but it continued to thrive, subsuming products such as Lucozade, Macleans toothpaste and Eno antacid, until being subsumed itself in 1989 as SmithKline Beecham, and in 2000 as GlaxoSmithKline.  And there the Beechams connection to Knebworth House continues on into the future, as it is Glaxo’s Pharmaceutical Research & Development chimney stacks that, 100 years on, Knebworth House’s windows now look out at across Knebworth Park.  Henry Beecham could not have envisaged that when, having filled in his Census form, he looked out of these windows on that Sunday, April 24^th, in 1921.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

It is the time of year – and the years of our time – that many of us are reaching into the medicine cabinet for the Beecham’s Powders.  The travelling salesman Thomas Beecham opened his first factory ‘for the rapid production of medicines’ in 1849 in St Helens, Lancashire.  His son Sir Joseph Beecham expanded the company to such success that he entered into an agreement with the Duke of Bedford to purchase the Covent Garden estate for £2,000,000.  Sir Joseph died with more than half of this amount outstanding in mortgage, and his two sons, Sir Thomas, the renowned conductor, and Henry were left to sell off property to find the remainder of the money.

During this time – the early 1920s – Henry Beecham, ‘wholesale druggist’, in his early 30s, rented Knebworth House with his wife Ethel, five-year-old daughter Helen, four-year-old son Joseph, and newborn Henry.  Their household comprised Alice, a ‘trained nurse’; Ethel, a ‘children’s nurse’; Louise, a ‘housekeeper; Margaret, a ‘personal maid’; and Margaret’s husband George, a ‘motor mechanic’.  How do I know this?  Because last month the 1921 Census was published.

The Beechams seceded control of the family company soon afterwards, but it continued to thrive, subsuming products such as Lucozade, Macleans toothpaste and Eno antacid, until being subsumed itself in 1989 as SmithKline Beecham, and in 2000 as GlaxoSmithKline.  And there the Beechams connection to Knebworth House continues on into the future, as it is Glaxo’s Pharmaceutical Research & Development chimney stacks that, 100 years on, Knebworth House’s windows now look out at across Knebworth Park.  Henry Beecham could not have envisaged that when, having filled in his Census form, he looked out of these windows on that Sunday, April 24^th, in 1921.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

It’s the picture of the year for me – the name of our parish in lights above a Moscow cinema.  When the ‘Oasis Knebworth 1996’ film screened in cinemas worldwide in September, it was thrilling to see messages sent from all around the world from people visiting Knebworth Park in their local cinemas.  I don’t even know where ‘Zapopan, Jalisco’ is!  But they know where Knebworth is.

I can’t think of another English village that has as much worldwide recognition as Knebworth.  Stratford-upon-Avon’s a town, Glastonbury’s a town… possibly Haworth, home of the Brontës?  Perhaps St Mary Mead, the fictional home of Miss Marple?  Maybe the villages in the county of Midsomer?  But better to be known for music than murders.

In 2022 our village will be ‘trending’ again, when Oasis’s singer Liam Gallagher returns to Knebworth Park in June.  It will be our first ‘headline’ concert (as opposed to music festival) since the Red Hot Chili Peppers ten years ago, and the first to use our unique single-stage six-figure capacity since Robbie Williams almost twenty years ago.  So look out 2022 – and Zapopan, Jalisco – Knebworth’s back calling the world.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

What a happy occasion it was in St Martin’s Church on Tuesday 16^th November, when the Parish and local clergy gathered to witness the Licensing of Revd Charles King.  I’d had the pleasure of meeting Charles a few months earlier, and was delighted when I heard the news that he was to be appointed as Knebworth’s new Church of England Priest-in-Charge.  Alongside the positivity I know Charles will bring to our community, I am excited at the renewed life he will bring to two of my top three special buildings in the Parish.  Beautiful St Martin’s Church, originally designed by my great-great-uncle Edwin Lutyens, and finished by renowned Ampthill architect Albert Richardson in 1964 – albeit to a slightly simplified design than Richardson’s original one seen here, that we have framed in Knebworth House.  And of course the oldest building in the Parish, beautiful St Mary’s Church in Knebworth Park, which I have the privilege and pleasure of looking at every day from my study desk.  Indeed when I moved into my study 25 years ago and found myself in my desk chair looking at the sky and the top of the church’s flagpole, I built my desk and chair a carpeted plinth on which to sit so that lovely St Mary’s is now framed perfectly in my window.  David, Chryssie, Martha and I extend the warmest of welcomes to Charles, Anka and Hannah and wish them every happiness for their new lives in Knebworth, as part of our community and our home.  A very happy Christmas to all of our Knebworth neighbours,

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Whatever you think of Henry Lytton Cobbold – I think we can all agree the name is a bit of a mouthful.  My son, at school, was called Edward Silly-Long-Name.  I was called Elsie, for the initials L.C.  Now, for ease in day-to-day use, except when I’m representing Knebworth House, I tend to shorten it to Henry Cobbold.

Very touching this month of Remembrance, is to read this letter that was recently discovered in Suffolk.  It is a letter from my Lytton great-grandfather to my Cobbold great-grandfather.  It thanks for the sympathy expressed at the death of the second of his two Lytton son-and-heirs, John, killed in battle at El Alamein on 4^th July 1942, aged 32.  John’s elder brother, Antony, had been killed in an accident flying for the RAF 601 Squadron ten years earlier, aged 29.  Victor Lytton says here to Clement Cobbold, “We have now lost both our sons but you have given us yours to take their place”.  It is sobering to imagine the tears of this terrible time.

A consequence of these two tragedies was that my grandmother Hermione and her husband Kim Cobbold inherited the Lytton family home of Knebworth House, and we, their children and grandchildren, all became Lytton Cobbolds.  So this month more than any, contemplatively, and in awe of the sacrifices made in the terrible wars of the 20^th Century, I sign off, respectfully,

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

What horror stories have I got for you this Halloween month?  I am often asked about ghosts in Knebworth House, and am happy – and relieved – to report that I, personally, have never seen one.  But if ghosts are around, Knebworth House is, I’m sure, where they’d be found.  We have the dust of five centuries swirling within our Tudor walls.  They say that 75% of household dust is human skin.  So I do literally live with and breathe my ancestors.  I do also have to sleep in the house, so really it is better if I believe that I’m not going to run into one of them on the way to the bathroom.  Of course the night is full of noises, and Knebworth House does creak, but as children we would assure ourselves that any noise was simply the flagpole rope blowing in the wind, or pigeons scratching the stucco.

Nowadays I persuade myself that if I am going to meet a ghost it is much more likely to come from the future than from the past.  ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’  Maybe one day science will find a way of bending time, in the same way that a couple of hundred years ago it pulled electricity out of the air.  In the meantime I’m happy to get a good night’s sleep.

However if you do want to commune with the spirits – or just to get dressed up – do join the Knebworth Gardens Halloween Trail in Half Term week.  The details I’m sure are on the back of the magazine, or on our website.  You only get a prize though if you are a child… or a real ghost.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH