Edmund Joseph Stapleton-Bretherton 1881 - 1946

Heathfield House, Fareham, Hampshire

Edmund was born on 19th March 1881 in Fareham, Hampshire, the 8th child of Frederick Annesley and Hon. Isabella Stapleton-Bretherton.

He was educated at Beaumont College (1893-1900) and at Stonyhurst (1900-1901)

From 1901 to 1914 he managed the Rainhill Estate for his father.

In Oct 1918 he married Miss Betty Heron-Maxwell of Teviot Bank, Scotland. There were no children.


Military Service

Sept 1914 – gazetted as temporary captain in the Remount Service

Mar. 1915 Captain in the 21st Remount Squadron at Alexandria in Egypt

Aug 1915 Remount Squadron in Salonika in Greece

Mar 1916 Adjutant & Quartermaster of the Remount Section at Belbeis in Egypt

Aug 1916 Remounts at Ismailia in Egypt

Aug 1917 *Sick leave in England [see note below]

Feb 1919 Demobilised – mentioned in despatches – London Gazette July 1919

May 1921 Temporary Lt. with the 4th Battalion Hampshire Regiment – address given as Heathfield House, Fareham, Hampshire.


Post WW1


1919 on the death of his mother, he inherited Heathfield House in Fareham

From 1921 - lived in Little Abingdon, Cambridgeshire

Oct 1938 – he was a trustee for the Rainhill Estate after the death of his brother Frederick Bartholomew Joseph Stapleton-Bretherton

29th August 1946 Edmund Joseph Stapleton-Bretherton died aged 65. He is interred in the family vault in St Bartholomew’s Church


Sick Leave in England

*From the memoirs of Evelyn Blucher nee Stapleton-Bretherton who was interned in Berlin during the First World War with her husband Prince Gebhard Blucher :-

‘Berlin, April 1918: In the course of conversation [with a clairvoyant] …. she said “You have been terribly worried about something haven’t you?” “Yes” I said, “I am anxious about my brothers and brother-in-law, owing to this last offensive.” Looking round the room and seeing the photographs all about, she begged me not to worry, and taking up each photograph in turn, she told us the following, which I noted down as she said it ….. “This one…” and she took up the photo of my brother Edmund “…has a scar or sore along one side of his face.”

I knew nothing about them at the time, but about ten days after - I had received a letter from my mother, saying that ….. Edmund, my second brother, was home on sick leave owing to an abscess on his chin and jaw caused by the unhealthy food and water in the place he had been at.’