Richard Penruddocke Long

Richard Penruddocke Long JP, DL (19 December 1825 – 16 February 1875) was an English politician. He was a founding member of the English amateur cricket club I Zingari. Long was High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire in 1858, and further Justice of Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Montgomeryshire.

Early life

Born at Baynton House, East Coulston in Wiltshire, he was the son of Walter Long and Mary Anne Colquhoun and was baptised in Rood Ashton on 4 Jul 1827. Long served in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, reaching the rank of Captain in 1848 and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received a Master of Arts in 1852.

In 1846 his elder brother Walter married 21 year old Harriet Avarina Brunetta Herbert, only daughter and heiress of Captain Owen Herbert, of Dolforgan Hall, Montgomeryshire. Harriet died the following year as a result of complications during childbirth, and Walter died three months later, some say of a broken heart. All of these events eventually led to Long inheriting his father’s estates in 1867, including South Wraxall Manor and Rood Ashton in Wiltshire, and the former Herbert estates of Dolforgan and Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire.

Career

Long’s relationship with his father was at times bitter, with disagreements over money and property, and what Long saw as his father’s refusal to help him establish his political career. When he married, he and his wife Charlotte went to live at Dolforgan. He felt his income from the estates rental, and what he believed was an inadequate annual allowance from his father, were insufficient for him to live in a fitting style at Dolforgan Hall, carry out repairs and improvements on the estates in Montgomeryshire, and attend to his parliamentary duties as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chippenham from 1859 to 1865 and for North Wiltshire from 1865 to 1868. He was worried about the increasing encumbrances placed on the estates by his father, whom he believed was manipulating sales of portions of the settled estates to his future disadvantage. His mother died in 1856, and his father remarried a year later, which caused even more acrimony between the two.

Due to his increasing anxiety over the state of his finances, he was considering the possibility his family would be forced to live cheaply on the Continent in order to save sufficient money to service the outstanding debts on the Montgomeryshire estates. He suffered ongoing health problems, and in 1856 he had been injured in a shooting accident, which resulted in the loss of his right eye.

In 1867 when Long succeeded to his father’s estates, the family removed to Rood Ashton. Rood Ashton House was built for his grandfather Richard Godolphin Long in 1808, replacing an earlier mansion. The estate was originally purchased by Edward Long of Monkton, Wiltshire in 1597 and passed down through the generations.

Long’s troubles continued on inheriting Rood Ashton, and he and his wife, with their younger children spent protracted residences abroad – in Switzerland and France – partly for health and partly for domestic financial reasons. Long was under pressure from his stepmother, the former Lady Mary Bisshopp, who believed she had not been adequately provided for under the terms of her late husband’s will. He wrote to her expressing regret that he was unable to help her financially, due to the many demands made by delayed improvements to the estate and Rood Ashton House, and advised that she should curb her extravagant lifestyle. In 1871 in order to pay debts, he was forced to sell the greater part of the heavily encumbered Dolforgan estate for ₤76,500.

Family

On 4 October 1853, he married Charlotte Anna Dick, daughter of Rt. Hon. William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Dick of Humewood, co. Wicklow, in St George's Church in London. They had ten children, of which the two youngest were born in France. His 5 year old son Henry died in 1866 from diphtheria, which almost claimed the life of his wife.

*Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount Long (1854–1924)
*Florence Frideswyde Long (1855–1941), married Sir Arthur Henderson Fairbairn, 3rd Baronet (grandson of Sir William Fairbairn) on 5 July 1882
*Richard Godolphin Walmesley Chaloner, 1st Baron Gisborough (1856–1938)
*Robert Chaloner Critchley Long (4 September 1858–5 October 1938), married Maud Felicia Frances Ann Pugh-Johnson (d. 1916), youngest daughter of Captain Willes Johnson and his third wife [She was Margaret Anne Pugh, later Mrs. Pugh-Johnson from 2 February 1879, and eldest daughter of Major David Pugh, of Llanerchydol Hall, near Welshpool, and Rhiwargor, co. Montgomery, sometime MP, DL, and High Sheriff for Montgomeryshire, by his wife, Anne, only child and heiress of Evan Vaughan, Esq., of Beguildy, co. Radnor. See [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak3.htm Sarawak genealogy] for Maud Pugh-Johnson's Sarawak and Marlborough connections.] on 6 February 1884
*Margaret Henrietta Georgina Long (1859–1914), married Colonel Hugh Frank Clutterbuck on 6 August 1887
*Charlotte Ethel Long (1861–1936), married John Evan Hamilton Martin on 31 January 1889
*Henry Hope Giffard Long (1862–1866)
*Frances Laura Arabella Long (1864–1932), married firstly Harry Willes de Windt on 18 July 1882, married secondly Anthony George Lyster in 1892
*Maud Avarina Millesaintes Long (1867–1880)
*Colonel William Hoare Bourchier Long (1868–1943), married Vera Cecily Marchant Oliver on 25 November 1911

Death

He died, aged 49 in Cannes, France and was buried in West Ashton on 3 March 1875. After Long's death his wife moved to Dolforgan Court in Exmouth, Devon, and became known locally as “Lady Bountiful” for her charitable works and her role in founding a hospital. However, her husband's cousin, who was manager of the family estates, feared that she would ruin the estates as well as her son Walter’s reputation and the family name, through her "unthinking extravagance" and long-standing propensity for running up debts. In 1878 the family was forced to make legal arrangements to curb her spending.

Frugality was a foreign concept to Charlotte and she often travelled to Cannes, her favourite watering place, and always in style, with a private coupe on the train, eating off her own silver and eggshell china, and surrounded by a suite of couriers, valets de chambre and maids.

In 1872, after Emperor Napoleon III lost the Battle of Sedan, and with it his throne, he and the Empress Eugenie fled to England. One day when Charlotte was travelling in her usual style to the South of France, someone spotted her and mistakenly believed that the Empress was aboard the train. The word got around and a bouquet of flowers was thrown through the open window of Charlotte’s compartment with a note: “"We implore your Majesty to return to us"”. No doubt in French of course. Charlotte was known to bear a resemblance to the Empress.

Notes

References

*cite web | url= http://www.thepeerage.com/p19359.htm#i193581| title= thePeerage| accessdate= 2007-01-21
*Wiltshire Records Office, Swindon, Ref no. 947. Papers of Viscount Long.