SIR HENRY HOWARTH BASHFORD

Henry Howarth Bashford was the son of Frederick Bashford whose father James sailed on the HMS Illustrious, fought at the Battle of Trafalgar and went on to make money as what can only be described as a pirate, attacking and plundering Spanish ships. It is not clear how closely Frederick followed in his father’s footsteps, but he too became a rich naval man, making and losing a total of three fortunes one of which was in the silk trade. A silver medal awarded for ‘Best Silk in Bengal’ remains in the family.

Frederick had three wives marrying in 1879 for the last time Eleanor Sutton, an unsophisticated and pious teenager, thirty years his junior. A bust of Eleanor’s father, Reverend Henry Howarth, can be found in St George’s Hanover Square, an exceedingly fashionable London church of the time. The couple lived in Kensington where Henry was born in 1880, followed a year later by his brother Lyndsay. Two years later, Frederick died aged 53.

Eleanor was left a young widow with a meagre allowance of £80 a year on which to support herself and her two children. Her outlook on life became suspicious, judgemental and ferociously religious. Unable to afford to stay in Kensington, she set out to find less expensive lodgings and despite her attempts to avoid the exposure of her sons to what she considered were ‘worldly persons’, she somehow contrived to choose a brothel as their new home. Henry later recalled how smiling, buxom blondes would appear in doorways and offer him and his brother sweets, much to their enjoyment.

Henry’s early schooling was supplemented by his mother who taught her sons Hebrew so that they might read the Old Testament scriptures in their original form. For their secondary education, Eleanor chose Bedford Modern School, apparently because there was in post a particularly devoutly religious principal.

In 1896 at the age of fifteen, Henry set out as a naïve young immigrant to become a farm worker in Canada. His mother had sought a respectable Christian gentleman under whose care her son would survive in the New World, but her good intentions backfired. The ‘respectable’ farmer took all Henry’s money and belongings in a late-night game of poker. Penniless and with only the clothes he was wearing, the young immigrant was forced to wander round Canada until he found another homestead willing to take him in.

On his return from Canada, Henry decided to read medicine, gaining entrance to London University and then the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road. In 1900 he met Margaret Sutton who was only fourteen at the time, but eight years later they married and soon had a family of four children, Molly, Susan, Jill and Humphrey.

Whilst training for medicine, Henry developed a love of writing and began to publish novels with an autobiographical flavour. In 1908 his career had begun in the Post Office Medical Service but by 1924 he had written, co-written or edited twelve published books - over the next thirty years he was to write another ten.

The one book that would gain him the most posthumous fame was a novel entitled ‘Augustus Carp Esq by Himself’, a very funny piece of satire released anonymously as Henry anticipated the humour may not be appreciated within his social and professional circles. The petty rivalry and moral one-upmanship ridiculed in the novel were very much features of the gossipy, pious world of middle-class suburban London at the time.

In 1933 Henry became Chief Medical Officer to the Post Office and was knighted in 1938 for his contribution to significant medical research. He was made Honorary Physician to King George VI (1941-44) as well as Treasury Medical Advisor (1943-45), Medical Advisor to the Daily Telegraph and during the war became an advisor on medical provisions for Churchill’s secret bunker and war rooms. After retirement in 1946, Sir Henry, a countryman at heart, moved with his wife Margaret to the White House in Easton Royal.

During his life in the village, Sir Henry worked unceasingly for its welfare and was regarded as ‘a decent old sort who had time to stop and talk to everybody – and you didn’t have to agree with him on everything’.  Concerned that the young were required to play in the street, he bought and donated the field behind the village hall to become the recreation ground. A keen archaeologist, he was greatly interested in Holy Trinity church and served on the Parochial Church Council.  He wrote two books about the village – one a history of the parish and the other called ‘Wiltshire Harvest’ featuring stories of an unnamed village that was a thinly disguised Easton Royal.

Sir Henry died in 1961 and is buried in the village cemetery with his wife Margaret. In 2011, the Easton Royal Heritage Group helped to commemorate the life of this special man by erecting a memorial blue plaque on the wall of the White House.

Sir Henry Bashford

Memorial Plaque