Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

91 The will of Lionel Robinson and the acceptance of his family into the nobility Robinson left an estate of the gross value of £236,332 13s 3d, with net personalty of £133,952 16s 7d. He had last altered his will as late as 2 June last and probate had been granted to W.S. and to Bill Clark, who best knew his business. One hundred pounds was left to the Rev Anderson and his churchwardens, upon trust for investment so that the interest earned could be used to maintain the war memorial on Old Buckenham Green that Lionel had erected at his own expense. There were numerous bequests to his employees: John Oswald Kelloch (his cashier) received £500; William Boyce (his butler and an occasional cricketer) and George Beckett (his engineer) were each left £100; F Bramley and his wife (employees based in London), Annie Palmer (his head parlourmaid) and A.M.Hancock (his clerk) each received £50; Sergeant G Mea(d)cock (his commissionaire), A Warner (his head keeper) and A Cain (his chauffeur) were each granted £25; finally Harvey (his underkeeper), C Bunn (his gardener), Edith Wagg (his housemaid) and the loyal ‘Squibs’ (whose role was not specified) were rewarded with £10 apiece. Once the minor bequests had been dealt with the bulk of his estate was divided up as follows: all his bloodstock, whether in training or based at his stud farms stationed at Old Buckenham, Newmarket or Stockbridge, which had been co-owned with his partner, William Clark, were left to Clark to dispose of as he saw fit; £1,500 plus his household and personal belongings, stores of consumables, carriages, motors and those horses which were not part of the bloodstock were left to his wife, again without condition; his two daughters, Viola Evans and ‘Queenie’ Brockbank each received £500 whilst each of their children inherited £100, as did his brother Gerald Henry Robinson, who was living in Melbourne; another brother still resident in Melbourne, Arthur Robinson, was left £200; his nephew, Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Frederick Robinson was granted £250 and given an annuity of £150, to be increased to £250 on the death of Lionel’s widow; the Rev Henry Anderson was left £50 and there were small bequests and annuities to various relatives living in Australia. ‘The residue of his property he left to his wife for life with remainder in trust in equal shares for his two daughters and their respective issue, with cross remainders.’ Robinson’s younger daughter, ‘Queenie’, had two children. The elder Ann Marguerite Brockbank (1920-2009) in turn had two sons and a daughter from her marriage to Major John Pelham Mann. Her daughter, Celia Marguerite, married into the nobility, being wed in 1964 to George Willoughby Moke, who became the second Baron Norrie in 1977. The couple later divorced. Queenie’s son was John Myles Brockbank, known as Robin (1921-2006). He followed in his father’s military footsteps and had a distinguished army career, being awarded the Military Cross in the Second World War and rising to the rank of Major-General. Robin also married into the gentry, his wife Gillian being the daughter of Sir Edmund Findlay, Bt., a Scottish politician and proprietor of The Scotsman newspaper. They had three The death of Lionel Robinson and the fate of his cricket ground