Racing cars, rockets, pet foxes and eating an Oystercatcher - inside the eccentric world of 'Jock', the 13th Viscount Massereene

AS the centenary of the fire which spelled the end of Antrim Castle is marked, and while the ladies of the Massereene dynasty are frequently written about, this week we turn our attention to John Clotworthy Talbot Foster Whyte-Melville Skeffington - 13th Viscount Massereene and 6th Viscount Ferrard.

Son of Jean and sister of Diana, who have graced these pages on many occasions, he was known as Jock and was born on 22 October 1914 while his father was in France serving with the North Irish Horse.

Amongst his godparents were Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry and none other than Sir Edward Carson.

Six days after his eighth birthday, his family home, Antrim Castle, was torched.

He recalled: “I had to flee for my life there, with my home roaring in flames and with chaos everywhere. Somebody was killed. The last thing I remember was the nursery cat, with its fur on fire, screaming.”

He also remembered hiding with his mother from the flames and being warned that they all might perish. Amongst his memories of that night were the death threats placed on his parents, and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George had asked his father to disband his guards in return for police protection, ‘but Lloyd George broke his word’.

He was also Baron of Loughneagh, 6th Baron Oriel and 6th Baron Oriel and served as a Deputy Lieutenant for County Antrim. But he was much more than just a member of the landed gentry.

A motorsports enthusiast, he was the driver of the leading British car, an Aston Martin Ulster, in the Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race in 1937.

However, it was unpopular with his parents who, having lost Diana in 1930, preferred him to have a safer hobby. In the Northern Whig and Belfast Post, his mother, Lady Massereene, wrote of the dangers of racing and how it was ‘throwing lives away’.

In later years, he promoted the first scheduled air service between Glasgow-Oban-Isle of Mull, was a Freeman of the City of London, and a liveryman of the Shipwrights’ Company.

Other ventures included the founding of Knock Fisheries whose objective was to eliminate the middleman’s profits in the sale of lobster, and the buying of 10,000 acres of pig farms and citrus plantations in Florida.

Years later, his acres became the rocket - launching site of Cape Canaveral - but more on that later...

During the Second World War, he was a lieutenant in the Black Watch regiment and was invalided out in 1940 due to wounds received in action.

He had also served with the regiment in 1933-36. In 1944, he served in the Small Vessels Pool, Royal Navy. He was Gold Staff Officer at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

In 1939, he married Annabelle Kathleen Lewis, with whom he had two children, the Hon. John David Clotworthy Whyte-Melville Foster Skeffington (the current 14th Viscount Massereene and 7th Viscount Ferrard) and the Hon. Oriel Annabelle Diana Clotworthy Whyte-Melville Skeffington.

In 1949, he bought Chilham Castle in Kent, where he remained until his death.

Having inherited the Viscountcies of Massereene and Ferrard in 1956, he subsequently took his seat in the House of Lords.

His interests in conservation introduced the 1963 Deer Act, also several legislative measures to regulate riding schools and protect horses and ponies, being president of Ponies of Britain.

For twenty years, he was an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and in 1981, he became Club President, a post he held until January 1991, when he stood down.

He was also a big dog fan - mentioning his family’s greyhounds, Staffordshire Bull Terriers and Alsatians - and spoke on bills regarding dog control many times.

He is even associated with eight pieces at the National Portrait Gallery in London, featured, not exactly favourably, in Alan Clark’s famous diaries and was known as ‘The Massereene’ by neighbouring schoolchildren in Kent.

The Viscount was also a huge supporter of integrated education.

Lord Massereene died on 27 December 1992 and is buried in Christ Church Churchyard, Kent. There is a memorial stone dedicated to him in the small parterre at Antrim Castle Gardens.

Here we take a deep dive into the British Newspaper to learn more about the colourful life of a Lord.

In 1936 there were reports of the celebrations of his ‘coming of age’ on the island of Mull.

In 1938, there was a furore after a woman claimed she was pregnant with his child - prompting his request for a blood test, but the case was later dismissed and the complainant was ordered to pay 15 guineas in costs.

There was more controversy in 1939, when attempts were made to bankrupt him - over a play!

A paper from the time reported: “A loss of about £16,000 in connection with the production of a play which ran for only a few weeks was mentioned by the Hon. John Clotworthv Talbot Foster Whyte-Melville Skeftington. son of Viscount Masserene and Ferrard, during his public examination at the London Bankruptcy Court.

“The statement of affairs filed showed liabilities of £7,480 and assets estimated to produce £1,500. Mr. C. Bruce Park, Official Receiver, questioning Mr. Skettington about the stage venture, asked ‘as you went to money-lenders it shows that you had insufficient funds for an adventure of this magnitude.’ Mr. Skeffington replied ‘yes.’

“Answering further questions, Mr. Skeffington, who was stated to be serving with the forces, said that he did not tell his relatives about business deals he was negotiating.

“During 1938 he was pressed by creditors and last December he offered them twenty shillings in the pound, but eventually bankruptcy proceedings were taken.”

When asked by Mr. Bruce Park if he had ever been bankrupt before, he retorted: “Good heavens, no. I have not had time. I am only 25.”

But the playboy soon cleaned up his act with the advent of war and succeeded his father’s title in 1956.

He was a well known figure in the House of Lords and a passionate speaker on many subjects - with many regarding him as a visionary, ahead of his time.

In an feature in the Newcastle Journal in 1968, he was described as ‘one of the most right-wing peers’.

Sipping tea, he told the reporter that the House of Lords was somewhere that the Government could come for ‘advice on the cheap’.

Speaking about integrated education in Northern Ireland in the House of Lords in 1971, he said: “This is one reform I should like to see in the North of Ireland because I am sure that if Catholic and Protestant children can be educated in the same schools it will be the greatest guarantee possible for the future of the North of Ireland.”

He added of the notorious rabble rouser Enoch Powell: “I must say that I do not agree with Mr. Enoch Powell. He may be logical but he often goes off the beam.

In 1974, he mentioned another famous political figure, with links to Crumlin, when he said: “I am looking a long way ahead. I feel that if only the Catholic Church would allow integrated education in the North of Ireland, if only Protestant children and Catholic children could share the same schools - I agree, of course, that Catholic children would need to have separate religious education - the future of the North of Ireland would look a lot brighter.

“I only wish the noble Earl, Lord Longford, would divert some of his energies towards influencing the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland to allow integrated education. Historically he might then be remembered more for that than for his pursuit after pornographers. I put that forward just as my personal opinion.”

And in 1985, speaking about the Anglo Irish Agreement he mentioned his own family’s connection with the church and had harsh words for a certain Mr Paisley.

“My family has had very close connections with Ireland for hundreds of years, particularly with the North of Ireland. I was very surprised to hear the noble Lord say - at least, I understood him to say this - that this was very bad deal for Unionists.

“I am a Unionist, and I welcome this Agreement. My family, which has been Protestant all the time, has endowed Catholic churches. The Catholic church in Antrim was endowed by my family. We gave them land although we have always been a Protestant family, so I do not agree with those who say that this is a religious question.

“It is rather amusing in a way that Mr. Paisley's seat, with one or two others, used to be in the gift of my family. I am not an admirer of Mr. Paisley. I am rather ashamed that somebody like Mr. Paisley should occupy it now.

“Mr. Paisley’s rantings and ravings and histrionics are raising the emotions of ignorant people (they are not ignorant through their own fault; perhaps I should say ‘simple people’) and he has been doing his best completely to destroy any faith in this agreement.

“That is almost evil: I shall not use the word ‘evil’, but it is almost evil of him. His extravagant language would be heard better at Hyde Park Corner. I wonder how many of the tens of thousands of people who marched in Belfast last Sunday have read the agreement. I doubt whether as many as 1 per cent. have read it. They were all presumably worked up by Mr. Paisley’s extravagant language.

“The agreement, after all, confers on the North of Ireland tremendous advantages. The chief clause on which the whole agreement hangs deals with what are called the executive powers to be given, so some people say, to the South of Ireland. But they are not executive powers at all: they are completely consultative. To call them executive powers is complete and utter nonsense.”

Back in August 1992, Simon Courtauld interviewed the Lord for The Spectator, calling him one of ‘Britain’s most endearing eccentrics’.

The article reads: “As another shooting season gets under way, a rare game bird is about to re-emerge.

“It is the Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, veteran field sportsman of 78 seasons, who broke his leg last Christmas and has since been kept away from his favourite habitat, the House of Lords. But he will be back after the summer recess.

“Eight years ago, during debate on the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order in the House of Lords, Lord Massereene was talking about shooting curlew. They were not worth eating, he said, and the only reason he could think of for not giving them protection was to give Irishmen the chance to shoot something other than each other.

“Lord Massereene confirmed to me that he had once eaten a curlew, and it was pretty unpleasant.

“He went on, ‘I’ve eaten an oyster-catcher, too, and that was even worse.’

“I shot one by mistake, towards dusk, thinking it was something else. So I thought I might as well see what it was like to eat. Very fishy.”

Courtald said that the Lord spoke slowly, having suffered from a stammer in his youth, and had a rather gentle voice.

“Lord Massereene made his distinctive mark on the House of Lords more than 30 years ago, prompting Lord Hailsham once to observe, when he was Lord Chancellor, that while the Upper House might need some reforming, he hoped that Lord Massereene would never be reformed. During a debate on the Brixton riots in the early 1980s, Lord Massereene offered the comment that he was ‘the only member who has spoken who has had agricultural estates in Jamaica’, where the only riots he witnessed were ‘riots of joy, because when I arrived I always gave a big barbecue for all the people’.

“On another occasion, during an unemployment debate, Lord Massereene was able to reassure their Lordships that the situation was not as bad as they supposed, since he had been trying for months to find an under-gardener at Chilham.

“Quite apart from adding to the public stock of harmless pleasure, Lord Massereene is one of those rare people (often hereditary peers) who know about subjects which from time to time require legislation and of which most professional politicians are totally ignorant.

“When the Wildlife and Countryside Bill was going through the Lords in 1981, Lord Massereene spoke on 77 occasions, sometimes informing his contributions to debate with personal recollections. He once told the House that as a boy he had fired a catapult at a sparrow and hit an old man taking a bath.”

While it might not be a popular opinion these days, during the course of the interview, Lord Massereene, who wrote a book, The Lords, said: “I have witnessed the swift disintegration of everything that the word ‘British’ once stood for,’ he wrote, ‘and I have seen the world, in consequence, become a poorer place.’

“Those old colonial countries really miss Britain. They may not realise it, but they do.”

He had scathing words for some former Conservative politicians, too.

“Some of them are very good at mathematics, but they don’t understand a lot of other things. John Major seems to be a nice man, but I don’t think he’s had enough experience of life.

“I worry about this lack of experience. I remember when Lady Trumpington - charming person - was appointed Agriculture Minister in the Lords. She told me, in effect, that she didn’t know the difference between a doughnut and a turnip.”

On David Mellor, he said: “Don’t think much of him. Doesn’t know how to behave.”

The article continued: “A large greyhound, a retired racing dog, prowls round the house; at one point during our conversation it pushed open the door, took a tour of the room and lifted its leg on an arm of the sofa.

“Then, after mild rebukes from its master, it disappeared and we got on to the subject of foxes — not those which Lord Massereene used to chase when he was Master of the Ashford Valley Foxhounds, but the ones he kept as pets.”

The Lord said: “Some people thought I was mad. One of them escaped once, and I sometimes used to see him crossing the Canterbury road, at about two in the morning when I was coming home from the House. I would stop and get out of the car. I know he recognised me, but he never came back.”

Mr Courtald wrote: “Foxes are clearly in the blood: Lord Massereene's great-grandfather, George Whyte-Melville, devoted most of his life to hunting and died from an accident in the hunting field. But he also wrote novels, mainly on sporting subjects, and poems, and Lord Massereene is engaged in writing his biography.

“If Lord Mass of Cream and Feathers as he is known to some people — may occasionally appear slightly dotty, it is worth recording that one of his eccentric ideas nearly made him a fortune even greater than the one he inherited from his father.

“Having done a few years with the Black Watch in the 1930s, he went off to Florida with a cousin and bought 10,000 acres of pig farms and citrus plantations.

“He said: “The plan was to develop it for industry, but then the blasted war broke out, and in 1945 we weren’t allowed to export the currency needed to go on with it. Narrow- minded civil servants. So we had to sell.”

Not many years later, Lord Massereene’s acres became the rocket-launching site of Cape Canaveral.

The article concluded: “It is characteristic of his endearing modesty that he would only say of this missed opportunity that ‘had it worked, it would have been good for Britain’.

“It is his idea of Britain, of course, which may not appeal to everyone. But in these depressed times it is comforting to know that the Viscount Massereene and Ferrard is still going strong.”

His obituary read: ‘He was one of the most engagingly eccentric members of the House of Lords. He was able to enliven debates on almost any subject with personal anecdote and reference to his own experience although the question was once or twice gently raised whether he was really of this world.

‘Above all he stood, in his sometimes idiosyncratic way, for an old-fashioned common sense which the modern world did not always comprehend. Massereene was originally in favour of Britain being part of Europe, but latterly he had become distrustful of the French and was a convinced Eurosceptic. He had a remarkable range of interests, most of them rooted in the country and country sports. Several of his speeches were about bulls (his coat of arms includes six of them).

‘The pursuits of this most eclectic peer ranged from opera (he presented Countess Maritza at the Palace Theatre) to foxhunting. He once acknowledged, however, that if he had been born in a Liverpool slum ‘it might have taken me a long time to become a Conservative’.