Arthur Granville Soames

He was born on 12 October 1886 in Wingerworth, Derbyshire, England.[1] He was the only son of Harold Soames, brewer, later of Gray Rigg, Lilliput, Dorset (whose brother founded the landed gentry Soames family of Sheffield Park)[2] and his wife Katherine Mary, daughter of George Hill.[3] He was the brother of Auriol Davidson née Soames (who died under a train in Cheshunt in April 1919) and of Olave St. Clair Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide.

He was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards 16 August 1905, Lieutenant 21 September 1907,[4] and served with the regiment during the First World War.[5]

In November, 1926, then living at Ashwell Manor, Tyler's Green, Penn, Buckinghamshire, he was made Sheriff of Buckinghamshire,[6] and again the following year, 1927[7]

He was married on 20 Dec 1913 in London to Hope Mary Woodbine (b. 2 Aug 1893 in Westminster), daughter of businessman Charles Woodbyne Parish, of Ennismore Gardens, Kensington. The Parish family were Norfolk landed gentry, and Hope's mother Frances (née Boyle) was descended from the 2nd Earl of Glasgow.[8][9][10][11] Together, they had two daughters and a son :-

• Sanchia Mary (Bunty) Soames (21 Sept 1914 - 1 Jan 1953)
• Diana Katherine (Dido) Soames (24 Sept 1917 - 4 Feb 1997),[12] m. 1939 Lt.Col. Hugh William Cairns, M.C.
• (Arthur) Christopher (John) Soames (12 Oct 1920 - Sept 1987)

They divorced in 1934, and Arthur remarried twice:

• On 23 Oct 1934 in London to Annette Constance Jardine née Fraser (b. Sep 1876, East Grinstead, Sussex, England [13]
• On 16 Mar 1948 to Audrey Alma Humphreys.

His father Harold committed suicide by walking into the sea at Bournemouth, Dorset on Christmas Day 1918; his sister Auriol Edith Davidson, also committed suicide, by throwing herself under a train at Chestnut, Hertfordshire on 5 April 1919.

In 1934, he inherited the mansion and estate of Sheffield Park, Sussex, from his father's brother, Arthur Gilstrap Soames (who had purchased it in 1909),[14] selling the estate in 1953.[15] He also disposed of part of his extensive library around that time.[16]

He died in a London hospital on 6 July 1962 aged 75.[17]

Note: The contents of Sheffield Park were auctioned by Sotheby’s at the house in 1954.

The documents relating to Sheffield House were purchased on 3 March the same year from Sotheby’s in London, for the sterling equivalent of $36.40 by Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and it can only be assumed that they were extracted from the earlier auction at Sheffield Park with a view to a private sale. Their export to the United States had been in contravention of the Manorial Documents Rules, and in June 2000, the University generously returned the documents to East Sussex, where they were received by the acting Master of the Rolls and the Lord Lieutenant in her capacity of Custos Rotulorum at a ceremony on 24 July.