Arthur Granville Soames

Captain Arthur Granville Soames OBE (12 October 1886 – 6 July 1962) was a British Army officer in the Coldstream Guards and landowner.

Early life

He was born on 12 October 1886 in Wingerworth, Derbyshire, England. He was the only son of Harold Soames (1855-1918), brewer, later of Gray Rigg, Lilliput, Dorset.

Soames's uncle, Harold's brother, Arthur Gilstrap Soames, owned Sheffield Park, but he and his wife had only one daughter, Sylvia Soames. He later left Sheffield Park to Soames.

Soames's mother was Katherine Mary (1851-1932), a daughter of George Hill.

Soames was the brother of Olave St. Clair Baden-Powell (1889–1977), World Chief Guide.

On Christmas night 1918, his father, Harold Soames, committed suicide by walking into the sea at Lilliput, Poole, Dorset; his sister Auriol Edith Davidson also committed suicide, by throwing herself under a train at Chestnut, Hertfordshire on 5 April 1919. She was survived by her three small daughters, aged five, three, and three months.

Career

Soames was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards on 16 August 1905, promoted to Lieutenant on 21 September 1907, and served with the regiment during the First World War.

In November 1926, Soames was appointed as Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and was then living at Ashwell Manor, Tyler's Green, Penn, Buckinghamshire. He was appointed again the following year, 1927.

Personal life

On 20 December 1913 in London Soames married to Hope Mary Woodbine-Parish (b. 2 Aug 1893 in Westminster), daughter of businessman Charles Woodbyne Parish, of Ennismore Gardens, Kensington. Together, they had two daughters and a son:

• Sanchia Mary (Bunty) Soames (21 Sept 1914 - 1 Jan 1953)
• Diana Katherine (Dido) Soames (24 Sept 1917 - 4 Feb 1997), m. 1939 Lt.Col. Hugh William Cairns, M.C.
• (Arthur) Christopher (John) Soames (12 Oct 1920 - Sept 1987) who married Mary, daughter of Winston Churchill

They divorced in 1934, and Arthur Soames remarried twice:

• On 23 Oct 1934 in London to Annette Constance Jardine née Fraser (b. Sep 1876, East Grinstead, Sussex)
• On 16 Mar 1948 in Westminster to Audrey Alma nee Humphreys (16 July 1900 - 1990). In Q1 1923 in Reading she had married Vernon H Rivers, but they divorced, and he married again, in 1934 and in 1943. In Q2 1937 in Westminster she had married Ronald F A Sloane-Stanley, who died on the Isle of Wight in Q3 1948, aged 80.

In 1934, Soames inherited the mansion and estate of Sheffield Park, Sussex, from his father's childless brother, Arthur Gilstrap Soames, who had purchased it in 1909,; Soames sold the estate in 1953. He also disposed of part of his library.

He died in a London hospital on 6 July 1962 aged 75.