Descendents of Ernest and Katharine MacAndrew



Pallinghurst, 1919-1959: The MacAndrew Years, 1919-1959

Chapter 17. Descendents of Ernest and Katharine MacAndrew

Roderic O’Neill MacAndrew, known as Mac like his father, was born in The Wirrall in 1904, so he was 15 when the family moved to Rudgwick. He was not satisfied by life in England so left for South Africa when quite young, intent on becoming a farmer. In his youth he had been a keen sailor with his Uncle Vernon, enjoying collecting shells, and later on visits to England he joined the family sailing at Seaview in the Isle of Wight. He married 21 year old Marjorie K Marcus in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1931. In the 1930s they were farming on land called Quarme near Greytown in Natal. A deed of sale shows him adding a further 200 acres to this farm in 1935. They had three daughters. The marriage however was not going well and they legally separated in 1939. Returning to Rudgwick that year he learned to fly, and gained his aviator’s certificate on a tiger moth at Brookwood. He was described as a farmer on the flying certificate, which gave Pallinghurst as his address.

He then returned to Africa, serving in the South African Infantry during the war. He had badfly wanted to join the air force, but was too old at 35. In Cairo he had an accident involving a lift which left him with some disfigurement to his face. Roderic was a frequent sea traveller to judge by the number of times he is found in the incoming passenger lists. He was a keen fisherman and built three ski boats which he trailed to Durban and Mozambique to fish. The boats were all built in his garage with hand tools and to electricity.

His name is listed on a website of Greytown in Natal. Some of the information here came from a Greytown attorney involved with the website, who discovered by chance he had a file on Roderic in his archive. Such is the power of the internet to give up secrets. In these documents, Roderic gives his address as Quarme in 1947. He had returned to his farm after the war. Some years later, the farm was sold to Dim Turner in Greytown. When Denise asked him why he was selling Quarme, he replied that if someone was prepared to buy at such a silly price he felt obliged to sell!

He then bought two farms in Rhodesia, Melsetter and Chigwe. He built roads, planted timber and avocado pears. He tried coffee but that failed. He built his little house, adding hot water in a 45 gallon drum, heated over a wood fire, and electricity from a generator. He moved every few months between Rhodesia and Umdloti beach on a regular basis. He got on well with his farm labourers in Rhodesia and managed to survive the murders to which most of his neighbours succumbed. Richard Shepherd, his nephew, remembers visiting him in Rhodesia in 1962, and finding the farm in Rhodesia very beautiful, and forested, but living conditions primitive.

However he fell victim to cancer and when the local hospitals were very busy coping with the UDI war wounded to take his complaints of pain seriously, he was flown out on a regular flight from what is now Harare, the Rhodesian government having refused him clearance for a private flight. It was when he arrived in South Africa that the cancer was diagnosed. He was nursed at my home for three months before he died in the 1980s.

At that time his wife was back in Natal. After Roderic moved to Rhodesia, Denise says, her mother, Marjorie, then moved to Umdloti Beach on the north coast of Natal. Her mother’s health did not permit her to rough it in Rhodesia in those days as a pioneer on an undeveloped farm.

May Denise MacAndrew herself married Michael Graham, who worked at the Clan Line Shipping Line which ended up as part of Safmarine – some family link there!

Michael’s work moved to Cape Town, so she bought a 22 ha farm called Paulinas Dal at Franschoek on which she planted wine grapes. Three years later Michael was moved back to Durban. There were two children, Angus and Patrick, but their parents

divorced. Denise still lives in South Africa.

Of the other daughters, Brenda married secondly John Moffat, with whom she had two children. After he died, Brenda spent half her time in the Cape and half her time in Mallorca Spain in order to avoid paying income tax. She died in the Cape a few years ago. Tessa married her cousin Alan Lund but was also divorced – he was an alcoholic. Her son Mark is in Oxford, whilst Karen is in South Africa.

See Appendix below for details of documents held by Roy Harris of Nel & Stevens, Greytown SA. Documents which came to light by a Google search, using the search term MacAndrew, leading to his company website.

Donald was born at Gatwick Manor, in 1906. He was 13 when the family moved to Rudgwick. He later lived in Maida Vale until his marriage in 1943, when he was 37. His bride was Vera Miller from Chelsea. They married at St Simon Zelotes. They divorced c1950. I have been told by Roderic’s daughter Denis Graham (nee MacAndrew) he was caught kissing a male Russian ballet dancer on board a passenger ship. After this, he met with considerable family disapproval and never spoke to any of them again, though he did correspond in his last few years, living in the Charterhouse in central London. He lived to a good age, 94, dying in 2000. His memorial is in the Suttons Hospital in Charterhouse Brothers Burial Ground at Little Hallingbury, Essex. For much of their married life they lived in Rhodesia.

He is known locally for an article for the Saturday Review in 1942 about the Cokelers in nearby Loxwood. Richard Shepherd remembers him as a talented writer, and artist.

Katharine, who was only 11 on moving to Pallinghurst. Kitty, as she was known as, was the first to wed. She married polo playing Alfred Stuart (Stewart?) Lund in 1930. He was from Otto’s Bluff near Pietermaritzburg in Natal and somewhat older than her (see photo left, on their wedding day). The Lunds (of Scandinavian stock) in this area were farmers. Many are/were good games players. There are two Lunds listed in S African polo today.

They left immediately from their wedding at Rudgwick church for South Africa. Charles Mark was born there in 1931. They were back in England in Spring 1933 when Mr Lund rode in the first point-to-point, and again in late 1934 when Alan was born at Pallinghurst, after the death of his father. Mac tried to persuade him unsuccessfully to stay in Sussex and farm here, but instead he returned to farm the family land at Otto’s Bluff. Sadly, he became ill with cancer, and died when Mark was still very young. Katharine returned to England pregnant with Alan Stewart. Her two sons then spent time at Pallinghurst, and in 1936 she placed an advertisement in The Times for a nurse. She was still only 28. She learned to fly at the same time as her brother, Roderic, gaining her aviator’s certificate in the same year, 1939, quite an intrepid thing to do for a woman at the time, but not of use to the war effort. Instead, she did some nursing. Alan Lund married his cousin, Tessa MacAndrew (see above). He died in 1982 in London.

The engagement of Mrs Katharine Lund to Capt William James Affleck Shepherd, RA, was announced in The Times in 1943; the wedding took place at the King’s Chapel of the Savoy the January following. She had known him almost all her life, and he was a keen point-to-pointer, and rode in hunter chases, winning his last when 61, and training numerous horses; both he and Kitty spending much time in these pursuits every winter, also owning a stretch of the Wye to indulge another interest in fly fishing.

Capt Shepherd was uncle to Mary Maxwell, who lives in Rudgwick, and to the Rt Revd Sheppard, bishop and cricketer. His father, (William) James Affleck Shepherd was an artist who specialised in humorous drawings of animals, many for Punch magazine. The family had lived in Charlwood, but by the wedding, in Cirencester. Kitty and William moved into Tisman’s House, where Richard was born in 1947, and where they stayed until 1952, when they moved to Stratton End, Cirencester, where their son Richard still lives with his family. Richard continues the family enthusiasm for things equestrian, and is proud to point to his 118 winners between the age of 16 and 41. When not with his horses or hunting, he is an accountant practicing in Cirencester. He and Clare have three sons. Clare’s family tradition being the law, she is descended from the Irish Catholic Lord Russell of Killowen (1832-1900), Lord Chief Justice of England. However, Richard never rode at the Tisman’s point-to-point. He was after all only six years old when they left Sussex!

Richard’s father died in 1970 and Kitty in 2000, after an extremely healthy outdoor life, having made over Stratton End to him in 1978.

Sadly, as The Times reported on 27 Sep 1956, Kitty’s son Mark Lund, by her first marriage, was killed at Silverstone, with his wife looking on. He had been born in South Africa in 1931. He might have been destined to take on Pallinghurst but was not interested in the country life. Mark also left a young son. Peter Garnier's in his "The Sport" column in The Autocar, October 5th 1956 wrote: “It is with very great regret that I record on these pages the death of C.M. Lund while trying out a DB3S Aston Martin at Silverstone last Wednesday week. Mark was very definitely one of the up-and-coming drivers, and many people felt that he would have gone onto a great future - as his trial drive for Aston Martins indicated. He leaves a widow and a young child, to whom The Autocar offers its sincerest sympathy.”

Two years later, in April 1958, Ernest MacAndrew, ‘Old Mac’ himself died, “peacefully at home”, aged 84. The funeral was at Rudgwick church, followed by cremation. There is no monument to him or May in the churchyard, nor apparently anywhere else. A nice touch in the announcement was for “garden flowers only”. When his wife, Katharine May, died in September 1961, aged 88, a similar announcement was made. Her funeral was also at Rudgwick, but by then she had been living in Honeywood House, the nursing home in that other ‘House on the Hill’ in Rowhook, where she would have felt very much at home, in the shadow of Lady Tredegar, who had lived there until 1949.

Acknowledgements

Richard Shepherd for generously providing family information by letter and photographs

Angus, and especially his mother Denise Graham, for family information by email

Roy Harris, Greytown, Natal, SA of attorneys, Nel & Stevens, for information by email

Appendix

Roy Harris writes - I have the following documents in a file entitled “Marjorie MacAndrew”, which may be of interest:

1. A deed of sale in terms of which Roderic O'Neill MacAndrew described as being of the farm, Quarme, farmer, bought two pieces of contiguous land being portions of Welgeluk and Umvoti Vlei in extent approximately 200 acres on 20 February 1935.

2. Copy of marriage certificate showing marriage between RO MacAndrew and Marjorie Kathleen Marcus in the Magistrate's Court (note not church) on 9 March 1931 in Bloemfontein. RO MacAndrew was described as being 26 years of age, born in England and a bachelor, farming in Greytown, Natal. She was described as age 21, a spinster of Natal.

3. Deed of separation entered into on 18 March 1939. It records that there were three minor daughters of the marriage aged at that time 6, 4 & 1½ years.

4. A provisional drivers license issued by the Dept of Defence showing that private RO MacAndrew of the unit which seems to be SAI 6 (which would stand for South African Infantry 6) dated 2 November 1940. It seems that his force number was 135648.

5. An application for a marriage certificate made in 22 February 1944 by attorneys Nel & Stevens (that's my firm). There is no indication of the reason for the request. Normally one would try to locate one's marriage certificate for certain commercial transactions or for a divorce.

6. A letter dated 15 October 1947 addressed by Nel & Stevens to RO MacAndrew, Quarme, Greytown. The content refers to a loan he had made to one Bellin. This indicates that he was still on the farm Quarme at that stage.

7. A letter from attorneys AD Muller & Kimber of Durban addressed to Nel & Stevens stating the following of interest "re Mrs MK MacAndrew - the transfer from Mrs Moffat to Mrs MacAndrew has now been registered and as Mr & Mrs MacAndrew are in England, we are enclosing the following documents: Deeds of Transfer 6020/55, 998/46, 6590/46 & 1298/36. Will you please acknowledge the receipt of these documents and hold them in safe-custody for Mrs MacAndrew" [Mrs Marjorie K MacAndrew, Roderic’s wife].

8. Letter dated 13 July 1955 to AD Muller & Kimber from Nel & Stevens acknowledging receipt. However, they referred to a transfer Mrs Moffat to Mrs MacAndrew and advised that they would be holding the documents in safe-custody for Mrs MacAndrew.

9. A typed note which seems to show that Michael Henry Robert Graham, born 14 September 1933 and May Denise MacAndrew born 23 February 1933 signed an Antenuptual Contract no 1181/57 on 16 November 1957, and it was registered on 22 November 1957.

10. A handwritten note, presumably by a member of the Nel & Stevens staff recording a phone call from Mrs MacAndrew wanting amendments to her will dated 14 February 1958;

11. Letter dated 17 October 1959 addressed to Mrs M[arjorie] MacAndrew, "Latitude 29" Umdloti Beach, North Coast, enclosing her title deed referred to above.

12. Letter from Mrs MacAndrew dated 17 March 1961 from the same address requesting a copy of her post nuptial contract drawn up in 1941. It does not say who the parties to the agreement were.

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