Introduction
The de Robecks have always been fighting men. The 2nd Baron de Robeck served with the Franco-American army against the British redcoats in the American War of Independence. His son, the 3rd Baron, fought in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. The 4th Baron opted for a quieter life, building the present family home of Gowran Grange outside Punchestown and serving as Ranger for the Curragh in the reign of Queen Victoria. His son, Admiral Sir John de Robeck (1862 - 1928, reluctantly witnessed the disastrous attempt to capture the Dardanelles Straits in March 1915. The 5th Baron commanded an artillery battalion in the Great War and married one of the Alexanders of County Carlow. In World war Two, the 6th Baron was instrumental in helping General "Punch" Cowan defeat the Japanese in Burma. The present head of the family is 32-year-old John, 8th Baron de Robeck. A military career is not amongst his plans for the future.
When the American colonies went to war against their British overlords in the late 18th century, many in Europe greeted the news with delight. Ever since the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth, the British had been cresting upon a wave of unprecedented power and prosperity that threatened to give the London elite complete control over the known world. The American Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776 spelled a new age for global politics. Within a decade, the colonial lust for liberty, equality and fraternity would spiral across the Atlantic and engulf France in the one of the bloodiest revolutions of the modern age.
The ill-equipped American colonials were quick to recognise the traditional French fondness for fighting the English. Invitations for military assistance were posted to the French capital. In July 1880, the Comte de Rochambeau dropped anchor at Rhode Island with a fleet of ships and 6000 soldiers. Amongst this vast army was "Lauzun's Legions", a light cavalry regiment of multi-lingual volunteers, considered to be the finest horse riders in Europe. Their leader was the chivalrous Duc de Lauzun, a favourite of Marie Antoinette and sometime lover to the "English Rose", Lady Sarah Lennox. Lauzun's Legion provided invaluable support to the Americans, taking part in the decisive defeat of the British Redcoats at Yorktown in the autumn of 1782.
Among the most gallant of Lauzun's officers was a Swedish noble named Johan Henrik Fock, 2nd Baron de Robeck. The 2nd Baron was born on 21st May 1753 in Slota, Skaraborg in the north of Sweden's Västergötland province. (1) He was the eldest child of the eleven children of Jakob and Katarina Fock. (2) His father, Jakob Constantin Fock was born on 2nd March 1724 at Medelplana, Skaraborg. Jakob's forbears hailed from Westphalia in Germany but had moved steadily west over the course of the 17th century. There are also suggestions that the Fock family may have come from Estonia. Many Estonian nobles were expelled from the country when it purged itself of German speaking lords and relocated to Sweden. There are, for instance, references to an 18th century Estonian manor house called "Sagadi" owned by the Focks. Jakob's father seems to have been Henrik Johann Fock, born in Gallared, Halland, Sweden, in 1694. Jakob's mother was either Christina Uggla or Magdalene Belfrage. On 23rd June 1752, Jakob was married at Bjurback in Sweden to 22-year-old Katraina (or Catharina) Magdalena Hård (1730 - 1806). Jakob died at Bjurbank on 7th June 1803 and Katarina on 30th July 1806. It is not clear why Johan succeeded to the de Robck title. It is said that Frederick of Sweden bestowed it upon the family in 1750, but whether this was upon Johan's father, grandfather or another relative is unknown. At any rate, Johan was present at a skirmish with British Redcoats at Gloucester, Massachusetts, during which he was wounded in the leg and had his horse shot from underneath him in. He survived and, in 1783, he returned to France to collect an annual pension of 1500 livres for his distinguished services.
On 9th March 1789, the Baron married Anne Fitzpatrick, the wealthy young heiress of Galway landowner, Richard Fitzpatrick. Her grandfather Richard Fitzpatrick was captain of HMS Richmond in 1687, and was given a generous grant of land in Offaly for his part in a victory in 1696 against the French. A member of the Irish Parliament, he was raised to the Irish peerage as the 1st Baron Gowran. It was in deference to this title that the name "Gowran Grange" was ultimately chosen for the de Robeck's Kildare house in 1857. Anne's cousin John, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, was one of the great horse racing enthusiasts in the reign of "Mad King" George III. In January 1765 the 2nd Earl began an affair with Lady Grafton, the unhappy wife of the decadent Duke of Grafton. They had a son in 1768 and eloped, much to Grafton's embarrassment. One assumes this was something of a talking point around the de Robeck's dinner table twenty years later.
The 2nd Baron's marriage would produce just one son, Henry. On July 13th 1789, four months after his wedding, an Act of Parliament granted the Baron British citizenship. The reasons for his new life in Britain are unclear but, as an aristocrat, his timing was impeccable. The day after his naturalization, the Bastille in Paris was stormed and the Ancien Regime of France began its rapid descent into bloody pandemonium. The Duc de Lauzun was one of untold thousands to perish on the guillotine.
The 2nd Baron de Robeck died on 22nd September 1817 and was succeeded by his only son, Henry. Like his father, Henry enjoyed a distinguished military career, this time serving with the Redcoats during the Napoleonic Wars. The Queen's Own Hussars - or the "Saucy Seventh" as his spectacularly uniformed cavalry regiment was known - effectively lost more than 600 of its 750 men during the cruel match across the Pyrenees in the bitter winter of 1808. A further 60 died when a troopship was wrecked on its return to England. The teenaged Henry Fock somehow came through these ordeals intact and was by Sir John Moore's side when the Redcoats secured a critical victory over the French at Corunna on 16th January 1809. He continued to serve with the 7th and resigned in 1814, a year before his regiment was all but decimated at Waterloo following twelve extraordinarily courageous and crazy charges at enemy troops.
The 3rd Baron's penchant for reckless living may have inspired his marriage in 1820 to the vivacious Margaret Lawless, eldest daughter of the 2nd Baron Cloncurry of Lyons. His new father-in-law, a supporter of Wolfe Tone's ill-fated rebellion in 1798, continued to be one of the most controversial peers in Ireland with his ongoing support for Catholic Emancipation. Margaret bore him an heir, John, and two daughters. The elder daughter Anna Maria de Robeck (1821-1868) married William Levinge, seventh son of Sir Richard Levinge of Knockdrin Castle, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. The younger daughter Gertrude died unmarried in 1844 at the tender age of 18.
In 1828, the Parliament of George IV passed a special Act enabling the de Robecks to divorce. Exactly why the de Robecks were obliged to get a divorce is not known. It probably has something to do with Lord Sussex Lennox, the youngest son of the 4th Duke of Richmond. The Duke, a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died of rabies ten years earlier, having been bitten by a pet fox during a tour of Canada. Famed for his prowess at the Marylebone Cricket Club, Lord Lennox and 24-year-old Margaret embarked on a romance during this time and married on 3rd April 1828. The marriage must have gone down poorly with his elder brother, the 5th Duke, a vehement opponent of Catholic Emancipation. A son, Berkeley Lennox, was born just over three months later on 16th July but died aged 29 in 1857.
But perhaps the origins of the de Robeck's divorce are to be found somewhere in this lively anecdote recorded in The Connaught Journal on February 16th 1824:
"Yesterday morning, about eight o'clock, Mr. Goodison, Chief Peace Officer, of College-street Divisional Police-office, despatched a party of Peace-officers to the neighbourhood of Ball's-bridge, with directions to disperse a number of persons who it was understood were to assemble there for the purpose of fighting dogs and hunting badgers. When the Peace-officers arrived at the place, their attention was drawn to another scene which more imperatively called for their interference. They perceived a party of Gentlemen in an adjoining field, some of whom were evidently about to fight a duel. The officers immediately took the Gentlemen, whom they saw with pistols (which were cocked) in their hands, into custody. The principals, Thomas Spring Rice, Esq., and Waller O'Grady, Esq., to whom the seconds were about to hand the pistols, effected their escape. The seconds, namely, Henry Baron Robeck and James Franks, Esq., were brought to College-st. Police-office, where they were each held to bail, to keep the peace, themselves in 500l. each, & two sureties, in 250l. each.- The sureties for Mr. Franks were Judge Day and Mr. O'Driscoll; sureties for Baron Robeck, were Mr. Gaskin and Mr. O'Driscoll, the latter Gentleman having offered his services, a second friend whom Baron Robeck had sent for as bail not having at that time arrived at the office'. (1)
It is not known precisely when the de Robeck connection with Kildare began but in 1831, Bell's Weekly Messenger announced the 3rd Baron's second marriage to Emily, eldest daughter of John Joseph Henry of Lodge Park, Straffan. Emily's brother Sir Hastings Yelverton would go on to be First Lord of the Admiralty which may explain why her grandson, Sir John de Robeck, joined the Royal Navy. The 3rd Baron and Emily had seven sons. The eldest, Captain Hastings de Robeck, married a daughter of Dr. William Atherstone, the celebrated South African medical man who first established the genuineness of the 21 carat Hopetown Diamond. The third son, Captain Rawdon de Robeck, served with the King's Own Regiment but died in Nova Scotia in 1867, shortly before his regiment's outstanding victory over the insane King Theodore II of Abyssinia's army at the battle of Magdala. (See "Flashman on the March" by George MacDonald Fraser). The sixth son, Major Charles de Robeck, served with the 60th Rifles during the Indian Mutiny of 1857 as a young man and married an Australian, Eleanor Okeden. Her father, William Parry Okeden, was the Police Commissioner in charge of halting illicit smuggling on the Queensland - New South Wales from 1870 to 1886. he was subsequently responsible for Australia's immigration policy and the protection of aborigines. Their daughter, Nesta de Robeck, was a renowned expert on the Renaissance.
The 3rd Baron's colourful life came to a tragic end in October 1856. (2) The Cork Examiner gave the following report.
The search for Baron de Robeck, whose mysterious disappearance from Leixlip Castle we reported yesterday, still continues fruitless, notwithstanding that it has been most unremitting and energetic. About 40 men were engaged yesterday, as on the former days, in dragging the river carefully, but without success. The police of the various districts in the neighbourhood, who have been on the alert to learn tidings of the Baron, have been equally unsuccessful. A reward of £20 has, we understand, been offered to the person who shall first bring intelligence respecting him.
John Fock, the 3rd Baron's 26-year-old firstborn son, thus succeeded as 4th baron de Robeck in October 1856. The previous January, John married Sophia Burton, daughter of the wealthy County Carlow landowner, William Fitzwilliam Burton. Her grandfather Benjamin Burton married Anne Mainwaring, sole heiress of the estate of Goltho Hall in Lincolnshire. Sophia was one of nine children - her brothers followed the traditional gentry role of becoming magistrates, clergymen and soldiers. Of their ten children, three sons and two daughters survived childhood. In 1857, a year after his unexpected inheritance, the 4th Baron commissioned the Dublin architect John McCurdy to start work on a new house outside Punchestown. Completed in 1872, the gabled Tudor Revival house was called Gowran Grange, named for his great-grandmother's forbear, Lord Gowran.
The 4th Baron seems to have lived a comparatively sedate life, serving as Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for County Kildare, although his strong military genes also propelled him to serve as a sometime Captain with the King's 8th Regiment of Foot and as a Major with the Kildare Militia. In 1876, his landholdings in Kildare were registered as 2,638 acres. For many years he served as the Queen's Ranger at the Curragh, by which office he was to oversee the running of the 5000-acre park now famous as the headquarters of Irish flat racing. The first permanent British Army camp was built at the Curragh during the Crimean War (1855-1856). Queen Victoria came to the Curragh in 1861 to visit her son the Prince of Wales (Edward VII), then training with the Guards. Indeed rumours abound that the fun-loving young prince enjoyed his first liaison with an actress while stationed at the Curragh. His exceedingly neurotic father Prince Albert was so shocked when he heard the tale that, within four weeks, he contracted a fatal illness and died. Victoria never forgave her wayward firstborn for his indiscretion. One wonders what Ranger de Robeck made of it all.
The 4th Baron died aged 81 in August 1904 and was succeeded by his 45-year-old son Henry Edward Wiliam Fock. Born in March 1859, he was sometime Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Kildare. On 21st December 1886 he married Anne Cranston Alexander, youngest daughter of Lorenzo Alexander of Straw Hall, Co. Carlow. Lorenzo's grandfather John Alexander was a prosperous Belfast miller who relocated to Milford, Co. Carlow, in the late 18th century. In 1879, Anne's first cousin John Alexander was with the scouts who tracked down the last Zulu king Cetshwayo. Four years after the 4th Baron's wedding, the Alexander's waterwheel at Milford began supplying power to Carlow, making it the first inland town in Britain or Ireland to be lit by electricity. Anne seems to have inherited some of the Alexander's penchant for science. She was certainly keen on astronomy, making note of a meteor's appearance during a lunar eclipse on November 16th 1910. Her mother, Harriet Burton, was a daughter of the influential Tory landowner, Colonel Henry Bruen of Oak Park, Co. Carlow. This marriage brought the de Robeck's into close connection with the gentry of Carlow, particularly the Bruen, Alexander and McClintock Bunbury families.
The 4th Baron and Lady Anne had two further sons and three daughters who survived to adulthood. I shall turn to the second son, Admiral Sir John de Robeck, in due course. The third son Major Charles de Robeck served with the Sherwood Foresters during World War One and married Louisa Warren, second daughter of Major William Warren. The eldest daughter Emily de Robeck was married in April 1878 to Thomas de Burgh of Oldtown (see de Burgh of Oldtown), a soldier who served with her cousin John Alexander in the Zulu campaign. She was mother to General Sir Eric de Burgh, Lieutenant Thomas de Burgh (killed in 1917) and Captain Charles de Burgh, DSO, who served under her brother Admiral Sir John de Robeck in World War One. The second daughter Gertrude de Robeck died unmarried in March 1935. The youngest daughter Zoe de Robeck was married on 19th August 1890 to Major William Francis Tremayne, JP, of Carclew Estate in Cornwall. Major Tremayne was a scion of the family responsible for building the "Lost Gardens of Heligan". Zoe died on 22nd November 1952, leaving issue.
During the First World War, the elderly 5th Baron served as a Lieutenant Colonel with the Royal Field Artillery. Alas, this most brutal of wars was all about artillery. It was the bombs and mortars that terrified and terrorized the soldiers and citizens of Europe, the exploding shrapnel that caused the greatest injury and loss of life.
The 5th Baron's younger brother, John, bore witness to the devastating supremacy of 20th century artillery during one of the greatest disasters of the war - Gallipoli and the Dardanelles campaign. Sir John de Robeck was born at Gowran Grange on 10th June 1862 and joined the Royal Navy aged 13, training on HMS Britannia. Forty years later, the Kildare-born sailor was fast approaching the height of his profession, serving as second-in-command to Admiral Sir Sackville Carden, Commander-in-Chief of the British fleet in the East Mediterranean. In World War One, the Dardanelle Straits offered the Allied armies of Britain and France a direct route via the Black Sea to their Russian allies in the east. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, recognised that the war on the Western Front had plunged into a devastating stalemate. Every day the newspapers carried the names of hundreds of soldiers slain in the muddy trenches. Opening up an Eastern Front was, Churchill believed, imperative if the Germans were to be defeated. Admiral Cardon was instructed to send his fleet into the Dardanelles and force a way through to Russia.
Anxious to prevent this link up from taking place, the Germans had signed a treaty with the Turks by which the former Ottoman Empire was instructed to secure the straits. The Straits -65km in length and 7km in width - were overlooked by steep, heavily fortified cliffs with Gallipoli to the northwest and the coast of Asia Minor to the south. Navigation through the wildly erratic current would present a further hindrance. Cardon's initial plan was to use his battleships to neutralise the Turkish fortresses, starting with the outer guns and gradually homing in on the forts themselves. Intrinsic to this plan was the capture of The Narrows, a short passage of water regularly mined by the Turks.
The attack on The Narrows was scheduled to take place on 18th March 1915. That same day, Cardon collapsed from nervous exhaustion and control of the entire operation passed to Rear Admiral Sir John de Robeck. Sir John duly sent sixteen battleships and many other smaller vessels up the Straits. Alas, he was misinformed that minesweepers had cleared the Turkish mines. The small fleet ran directly into a drifting minefield set ten days earlier. Five British and French warships were sunk and destroyed with 700 men dead. Sir John reeled backwards in shock and called off the operation, insisting no further attempt be made until Allied ground troops captured the high ground overlooking the Narrows and made it safe from any further mine-setters. Churchill and Roger Keyes, Sir John's own chief of staff, tried to force him to change his mind but the Admiral was insistent. For this, his name was greatly blackened by those in London who felt his stance had doomed the entire Dardanelles campaign to failure. Churchill, the campaign's original conductor, was swiftly demoted and, the following November, resigned from the government and returned to soldiering, seeing active service in France. It is said that he never forgave Sir John for his downfall.
On 25th April 1915, a British army that would ultimately include 60,000 Australians and 18,000 New Zealanders landed at Gallipoli in an attempt to wrestle control of the Dardanelles. The campaign proved disastrous with more than 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders killed and 34,000 wounded. However, Sir John made considerable amends with the British public for his role in assisting the evacuation of troops from Gallipoli in December 1915. He was promoted to Vice-Admiral and saw out the remainder of the war in command of the Grand Fleet's 2nd Battle Squadron.
In 1919, Sir John was sent to Constantinople as British High Commissioner. Amongst his principal tasks was a review of the position of some one hundred Turks being held in Malta on charges of mass murder in Armenia. Sir John showed considerable tact in this role, realising that while the government was locked in political negotiation with the rapidly rising Turkish National Party of Mustafa Kemal, Britain would be ill-advised to intervene. That said, he was careful to stress that many of the Maltese prisoners had been arrested on nothing more than statements made by informers and intriguers. One wonders if such judgment is ever shown by those in charge of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Sir John was given command of the Atlantic Fleet in 1922, the same year he married Hilda MacDonald-Moreton, widow of Sir Simon MacDonald Lockart of Lee Castle in East Lanarkshire. They had no children before his death, aged 66, on 20th January 1928. (3)
The 5th Baron de Robeck died on 27th April 1929 at the age of 70. His widow, Anne de Robeck, lived on until 28th March 1937. They had three sons - John, Bernard and Michael - and three daughters - Dorothy, Harriet and Muriel.
The second son, Bernard "Barney" Lorenzo de Robeck, was born in January 1898 and educated at Clifton and the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. At the age of 16 he joined the Royal Horse Artillery, with whom he served in World War One, being wounded on three occasions and winning the Military Cross in 1917. Promoted Brevet Major in 1936, he served in World War Two, retiring with the rank of Brigadier in 1943. On 5th May 1932 he married the Hon. Peggy Cunliffe. Her father, Baron Cunliffe, was a prominent financier and Governor of the Bank of England from 1913 to 1918. Brigadier Bernard de Robeck died on 3rd June 1957, leaving two sons, Bryan Michael and Hugh Alexander.
The 5th Baron's third son Michael Charles de Robeck died mysteriously on 30th December 1922, aged 19. The eldest daughter Dorothy de Robeck was married in October 1910 to Major Digby Peel, a keen yachtsman from the Isle of Wight whose father, William Peel, was a prominent administrator in Egypt at this time. Continuing with the maritime theme of the de Robeck family, it is worth noting that Major Peel's sister Edith was married to Rear Admiral Robert Anstruther, the senior officer commanding the east coast of China during World War One. Dorothy's sister, Olave de Robeck, served with the Red Cross during that same war, operating in Italy and France. After the war, she married Brigadier Robert Peel Waller, DSO, who would go on to command the Royal Artillery in Persia and the Middle East during World War Two. Their son Patrick Waller served with 12th Lancers in the war. The youngest daughter Muriel de Robeck also served with the Red Cross during the war and, on 18th July 1933, she married Michael Bentley of Hoey's Bridge, British East Africa (now Kenya). Alas, she died just over a year later on 12th August 1934.
The 5th Baron was succeeded at Gowran Grange by his eldest son, John "Jackie" (Henry Edward) Fock. Born on 10th April 1895, he had also schooled at Clifton and Woolwich, serving with the Royal Artillery in World War One and being awarded an MBE in 1919. During World War Two, "Brigadier the Baron de Robeck" commanded the Artillery Division of the 17th Indian Infantry, otherwise known as the "Black Cats". In December 1944, the Black Cats took part in the overland campaign to oust the Japanese from the then British colony of Burma. The ensuing battle of Meiktila was the decisive battle of the Burma campaign and resulted in the liberation of Burma, the capture of Rangoon and the virtual destruction of the Japanese Burma Area Army. General William Slim, who orchestrated the campaign, believed it would be possible to re-conquer Burma over land if the Japanese army could be seriously weakened first. In the subsequent campaign Slim overcame immense logistical problems, executed a large-scale deception plan, oversaw the longest opposed river crossing conducted in World War II and carried out an armoured dash behind enemy lines supplied entirely from the air. Seven Victoria Crosses and 161 Military crosses were distributed amongst Slim's formation by way of thanks.
On 17th August 1940, the 6th Baron married Katherine Simpson, eldest daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Simpson of Hutton House, Penrith, Cumberland. They had two sons, Martin and Richard.
The 6th Baron died on his 70th birthday in 1965 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Martin de Robeck. (4) Born on 21st August 1941, the 7th Baron was a universally respected individual whose hands on approach to life, both at Gowran Grange and in the surrounding counties, showed a most extraordinary energy, devotion and zest for life. Amongst his many portfolios he was chairman of Punchestown Racecourse, Chief Steward of the Grand Parade at the Dublin Horse Show and Commodore of the Blessington Sailing Club. His sudden death at the age of 54 in 1998 was a tremendous blow to all who knew him. He is survived by his wife, Caroline, his son John, the 8th Baron, and two daughters Gunilla and Melissa.
FOOTNOTES
1. Spring-Rice later served as Secretary for War and the Colonies in 1834
and was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1835-39. He was created Baron Monteagle
in 1839. O'Grady may have been John Waller O'Grady, RN, JP, of Fort Etna,
Co. Limerick.
2. In 1844, the 3rd Baron had an address at 6 Merrion Square East.
3. The archives of Admiral Sir John de Robeck were deposited at the Churchill
Archives Centre by his great nephew, the 7th Baron de Robeck, in July 1965.
By the terms of the Admiral's will they had been kept in the family's possession,
first in London and then at Gowran Grange, Naas, County Kildare, until the
last of his contemporaries had died. Mrs Jocelyn Proby (widow of the 7th
Baron) added the Midshipman's Logs to the collection in 1982.
4. In 1969 the widowed Katherine, Baroness de Robeck, was married secondly
to Jocelyn Campbell Patrick Proby, fourth son of Douglas James Hamilton
of Elton Hall, Peterborough, M.P. for Saffron Walden in 1910.