FAMOUS ARMY CHILDREN
Some well-known individuals were once British army children, among them:
  • writer and clergyman Laurence Sterne (b. Clonmel, Ireland, 1713-68);
  • soldier Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, GCB (b. London, 1782-1871);
  • soldier General Sir Charles Napier, GCB (b. London, 1782-1853);
  • soldier Lieutenant General Sir George Napier, KCB (b. London, 1784-1855);
  • soldier Field Marshal Sir William Maynard Gomm, GCB (b. Barbados, 1784-1875);
  • soldier Lieutenant General Sir William Napier, KCB (b. Celbridge, Ireland, 1785-1860);
  • nurse Mary Seacole (née Grant, b. Kingston, Jamaica, 1805-81);
  • musician Henry Lazarus (b. London, 1815-95);
  • soldier Field Marshal Lord Frederick Roberts, VC, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC (b. Cawnpore, now Kanpur, India, 1832-1914);
  • soldier Field Marshal Lord Garnet Wolseley, KP, OM, GCB, GCMG, VD, PC (b. Golden Bridge, Ireland, 1833-1913);
  • sailor Captain Hugh Talbot Burgoyne, VC, RN (b. Dublin, Ireland, 1833-70);
  • musician Alfred James Phasey (1834-88);
  • composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (b. London, 1842-1900);
  • garden designer Gertrude Jekyll (b. London, 1843-1932);
  • soldier and explorer Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Younghusband (b. Murree, India, now Pakistan, 1863-1942);
  • writer Cicely Hamilton (née Hammill, b. London, 1872-1952);
  • soldier Corporal John Shaul, VC (b. King's Lynn, 1873-1953);
  • soldier Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, CMG, MC, PC (b. Colchester, 1883-1950);
  • soldier Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE (b. Aldershot, 1884-1981);
  • writer 'Susan Miles', the pseudonym of Ursula Roberts (née Wyllie, b. India, 1887-1975);
  • musician Debroy Somers (b. Dublin, Ireland, 1890-1952);
  • soldier Major William La Touche Congreve, VC, DSO, MC (b. Burton, 1891-1916);
  • policeman Detective Inspector David Herbert Cyril Nixon (1894-1956);
  • soldier Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye, GCSI, GCIE, KCB, KBE, MC (b. Dublin, Ireland, 1895-1967);
  • soldier Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, KG, GCB, GCMG, KBE (b. Colchester, 1898-1979);
  • soldier Major General Orde Wingate, DSO (b. Naini Tal, India, 1903-44);
  • novelist Jocelyn Playfair (née Malan, b. Chakrata, India, 1904-96);
  • stage designer Oliver Messel (b. London, 1904-78);
  • novelist Christopher Isherwood (b. High Lane, 1904-86);
  • novelist Anthony Powell, CH, CBE (b. London, 1905-2000);
  • writer Mollie Panter-Downes (b. London, 1906-97);
  • writer Christabel Bielenberg (née Burton, b. London, 1909-2003);
  • writer Ursula Vaughan Williams (née Lock, b. Valletta, Malta, 1911-2007);
  • actress Vivien Leigh (née Vivian Hartley, b. Darjeeling, India, 1913-67);
  • soldier Lieutenant Colonel Sir David Stirling, DSO, OBE (b. Doune, Scotland, 1915-90);
  • actor and comedian Frankie Howerd, OBE (b. York, 1917-92);
  • actor Richard Todd (Palethorpe-Todd) (b.1919, Dublin, Ireland);
  • poet Sidney Keyes (b. Dartford, 1922-43);
  • actor Christopher Lee, CBE, CStJ (b.1922, London);
  • film director Lindsay Anderson (b. Bangalore, India, 1923-94);
  • equestrian writer and editor Elwyn Hartley Edwards (b. at sea/Denbigh, Wales, 1927-2007);
  • immunologist John Playfair (b.1931, Gillingham);
  • actress Prunella Scales, CBE (née Illingworth, b.1932, Sutton Abinger);
  • author, journalist and broadcaster Guy Lyon Playfair (b.1935, Quetta, India, now Pakistan);
  • soldier and explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell, OBE (b.1936, Hereford);
  • singer Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold George Dorsey) (b.1936, Madras, now Chennai, India);
  • novelist Jilly Cooper, OBE (née Sallitt, b.1937, Hornchurch);
  • film director Sir Ridley Scott (b.1937, South Shields);
  • Lady Elspeth Campbell (née Urquhart, b.1940, New Delhi, India), wife of the former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell (see below);
  • clergyman the Right Reverend Bill Ind (b.1942);
  • explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE (b.1944, Windsor);
  • actress Joanna Lumley, OBE (b.1946, Srinagar, Kashmir, India);
  • actress Charlotte Rampling, OBE (b.1946, Sturmer);
  • novelist Ian McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL (b.1948, Aldershot);
  • clergyman the Right Reverend James Jones (b.1948);
  • actress Jenny Agutter (b.1952, Taunton);
  • rugby player Maurice Colclough (b. Oxford, 1953-2006);
  • actress Fiona Fullerton (b.1956, Kaduna, Nigeria);
  • actress Juliet Stevenson, CBE (née Stevens, b.1956, Kelvedon);
jsteveson
Juliet Stevenson.







  • actor Chris Barrie (Brown) (b.1960, Hannover/Hanover, West Germany, now Germany);
  • comedienne Jenny Eclair (née Hargreaves, b.1960, Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, now Malaysia);
  • actress Tilda Swinton (b.1960, London);
  • rugby player Will Carling, OBE (b.1965, Bradford-on-Avon);
  • actress and model Elizabeth Hurley (b.1965, Basingstoke);
  • musician James Blunt (Blount) (b.1974, Tidworth); and
  • musician Pete Doherty (b.1979, Hexham).
Can you think of anyone else?

PERSONAL STORY: LADY ELSPETH CAMPBELL
This piece is an extract from an article that was published in the September 2004 edition of Scottish Field magazine entitled 'Treat her like a lady'. TACA is grateful to Scottish Field for permission to reproduce it.
'Lady Menzies Campbell was born Elspeth Mary Urquhart in the Lady Willingden nursing home in New Delhi in January 1940.

EC-ScotField
Left: Lady Elspeth Campbell.

These were turbulent times and her father, Major General Roy Urquhart, was away fighting in World War II. Aged six months she was taken by her 22-year-old mother, Pamela, back to Britain. The circuitous journey took two months as ships had to join a naval convoy out in the Atlantic for the final approach. Mother and baby sat on the deck wearing life jackets as ships were torpedoed around them; no one was allowed to stop to help the sinking victims.

Elspeth remembers little of the war, most of which was spent in relatively peaceful Devon with her great-grandmother. She does, however remember her father arriving back from the battle of Arnhem in September 1944 and a council of war being held on the lawn. She recalls an idyllic childhood. After the war her father was posted to Scotland and, when she was 10 years old, to Malaya. By now she had two younger sisters and a brother. Flag Staff house in Kuala Lumpur was permanently guarded by armed Gurkha guards and everywhere they went they either travelled in armoured vehicles or were surrounded by tanks. The terrorist war in Malaya was known as the 'emergency' and Elspeth says she felt fear for the first time.

After two years the family moved to peaceful occupied Austria and her photo albums show a large sugar pink house beside Lake Woerther See, where the children skied, swam, played tennis and rode. Her father had an official train and there were trips to Vienna to watch the changing of the guard at Schoenbrunn Palace, between the French, Russians, Americans and British.

Elspeth was sent to a convent school in Devon near to her grandparents who had retired from India. She says she was never ambitious but that she became head girl and always came top of her class, which surprised her. At 16 she had passed sufficient A levels to qualify her for a place at Oxford.

'Father was horrified at the idea.' He said: 'Nobody likes a bluestocking' and she was packed off to finishing school to learn not only shorthand, typing and etiquette, but how to open fetes and polish the skills required to be 'wife to a successful husband'.'
[Text and image ©, and courtesy of, Scottish Field.]


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