Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Charles Sydney Buxton and Eric Avebury were cousins



When I blogged about the Liberal flyer from the first 1910 general election I bought on Sunday, I said Charles Sydney Buxton and Eric Avebury were kinsmen.

A little research shows that they were cousins - or half-cousins, if there is such a relationship - as they had the same grandfather.

That grandfather was John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, who had 11 children from two marriages.

Charles was the son of his eldest child Constance Mary Lubbock. She was the daughter of John Lubbock's first wife Ellen Frances Hordern.

Eric Avebury was the son of his youngest child, Maurice Fox Pitt Lubbock. He was the son of John Lubbock's second wife Alice Fox-Pitt.

When I set off for the antique fair on Sunday I had just heard of Eric Avebury's death - just one of those odd coincidences.

It is striking to come across cousins who died more than a century apart and also strking that Eric Avebury eventuallly inherited his grandfather's title despite being born to the youngest of his 11 children.

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