This is a tale of little consequence but it illustrates the small pleasures that derive from a careful look at the papers left by our parents.
Three years ago, I chanced to meet a lady whose married name was Moorhouse. Going through my father’s papers I found a wedding invitation from 1930. I would have cast it aside but I noticed the groom was a Moorhouse. Looking more carefully, I saw that the bride was Diana, a niece of the 4th Earl of Leicester. Knowing that Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867-1963) #308 on the web family tree was a granddaughter of the second Earl I wondered why my young, impoverished, newly married parents had been invited to this undeniably posh wedding at St. Mark’s, North Audley Street.
Thinking about it I guessed that Diana had had a crush on my mother Mary (1908-2000) #408 when they were at school together and she just wanted her there on her big day. A little later, and I found the Order of Service for the ceremony bearing the initials DMC for Diana Meriel Coke (1907-1996) #15293 and SCTM for Samuel Cecil Trevor Moorhouse (1908-1975) #15305. One of the hymns, sung kneeling, was ‘O Perfect Love, all human thought transcending…’ The reception was at 30 Gloucester Place, which was a fine Georgian property in its day but which is currently being converted into flats.
Later, looking through my mother’s papers I found a carefully preserved, hand-written letter, addressed to my mother from the Golf Hotel, St. Jean de Luz. My dear Mary, I’ve found your letter in my writing case. Thank you so very very much for the lovely vase you gave me. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with it & it will be most useful. It was so nice of you. I am so sorry I didn’t answer your letter but it was such a hectic rush these last few days. We arrived here yesterday & it is quite the most divine place. Lovely & hot and not too fasionable [sic]. We spend the whole day bathing & paddling about the sea in a canoe. Then golf in the evening. You asked me how old Trevor is, he is 22 & was in the 10th Hussars, which he has now left as they are not allowed to marry until they are 26 or 27 in that regiment & he is now going to work in the Sorbo Sponge Rubber Company which is supposed to be a very good thing. Poor darling – he is at present in bed with what I imagine is a touch of the sun as he will insist on lying in the sun all day without a hat. Must close. Thanking you again so very very much for the lovely present. I am so delighted with it. Yours ever, Diana.
The marriage did not survive; they divorced in 1938.
Either she made a mistake, or he re-joined the 10th Hussars as the records show that 2nd Lt. S.C.T. Moorhouse of the 10th Hussars was a member of the British Expeditionary Force when he was awarded a Military Cross, gazetted 27th September 1940. The citation says Second Lieutenant Moorhouse’s cruiser was hit and set on fire, though not before it had accounted for a particularly deadly 37-mm gun, and most unluckily Captain Wyndham Malet and Second Lieutenant J Rowell were killed in their tank.
After that lucky escape Trevor survived the war and lived until 1975, Diana died in 1996 and my mother outlived them both. I wish I had asked her about that wedding.
Anthony Cobbold
