The Longcrofts 500 Years of a British Family

In 'The Longcrofts: 500 Years of a British Family' James Phillips-Evans, a genealogist who is himself a descendant of the eponymous family, charts the history of the Longcroft family. It spans half a millennium and begins with a humble Wiltshire farmer, Simon Longcraft, who lived in Wilsford in the Vale of Pewsey during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs in the early-to-mid 16th century. Through 13 chapters covering almost 400 pages, including 10 detailed family trees and 109 black & white illustrations, the book traces Simon's descendants into modern times, including many people alive today in the second decade of the 21st century. By about 1700 the spelling of the family name had itself evolved and settled as Longcroft, as it is borne by direct male-line members of the family today, but the name died out in the family's native county of Wiltshire, surviving only through a branch descended from an Oxford-educated clergyman who settled and flourished in the neighbouring county of Hampshire, whence the name and bloodline spread far and wide. Notable members of the family in the direct male line include the aviation pioneer, WWI veteran and squire of Plas Llanina Air Vice-Marshal Sir Charles Alexander Holcombe Longcroft, who was one of the founders of RAF Cranwell; Johann Zoffany's assistant-cum-pupil Thomas Longcroft, who became an artist and indigo planter in the early days of British India; and Cecil James Longcroft, who became a prominent figure in the City of London as chairman of the Sassoon mercantile and banking firm. In addition, the marriages of female members of the family into other notable families, and not-so-notable families, have produced various interesting individuals who possess Longcroft ancestry, including the grizzly bear hunter Montague Stevens, the scandalous solicitor Henry Smythies, the tragic WW2 heroine SOE Diana Hope Rowden, the long-serving Conservative MP Sir Ian Lloyd and his conservationist cousin David Lloyd, the much-loved Welsh actress Margaret John of 'Gavin & Stacey' fame and 'The Thick of It' actor Chris Langham, and the evolutionary biologist & acclaimed writer Professor Richard Dawkins. Ironically, the senior living branch of the family today no longer bears the name Longcroft but Bearcroft, owing to a change of name that took place in 1822 for legal reasons connected with the inheritance of Mere Hall, an historic country house and estate in Worcestershire. Other families and places included in the book because of their connection to the Longcroft family are the Twinings of London, who established their well-known tea brand in the Strand and gave us the 19th century social reformers Elizabeth & Louisa Twining, the Earls Castle Stewart of Old Lodge in Sussex and Stuart Hall in Ireland, the Burnett feudal barons of Kemnay House in Scotland, the Lloyd squires of Coedmore in Cardiganshire, the Lewis-Bowens of Clynfyw, the Foleys and Thursby-Pelhams of Ridgeway and Abermarlais, the Barons de Rutzen of Slebech Park and the Phillipps baronets of Picton Castle, all in Pembrokeshire, and the Dashwood baronets of West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire. Additionally, the book tells the stories of numerous less prominent but no less interesting families who have produced a plethora of compelling individuals over the years, both at home in Great Britain and throughout many if not most of the former colonies of the British Empire, and indeed many parts of the rest of the world, encompassing Ireland, the USA, Canada, Jamaica, Argentina, Malta, Egypt, Yemen, Kenya, Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe), South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma, and even far-flung places like Zanzibar, Nepal, Borneo and St Helena. The sheer scale of the diversity encountered amongst Simon Longcraft's descendants over the past 500 years is simply astonishing.