Charles Hugh Berners DL JP.  1842 – 1919

Charles Hugh was born in Bedhampton, Hampshire, on 28th August 1842. His family were constantly on the move. He entered Rugby School in April 1857 while the family was living at Landford House. From Rugby School he went up to Oxford and was matriculated at Christ Church college in 1860, gaining a BA (1865) and MA (1868). He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1864.

In the meanwhile, he leased the Rookery, Yoxford a few months before he married Mary Anstruther, daughter of 4^th Baronet Sir Ralph Anstruther of Balcaskie, in 1867. Charles and Mary had five children: Mary Alice (1868), John Anstruther (1869), Ralph Abercrombie (1871), Julia Katherine (1874) and Hamilton Hugh (1881). They shared their time between Yoxford, Suffolk, Long Cross, Surrey and 42 Lennox Gardens, London.

Charles served as a magistrate in Suffolk, both on the Bench and at Quarter Sessions, from at least 1873. Living in Yoxford meant Charles Hugh could be regularly involved with his family. In 1874 all the family were gathered at the Great Military Ball in Ipswich Town Hall: Mr and Mrs John Berners, Capt. and Mrs Hugh Berners, Mr and Mrs Charles Berners, Mrs Ralph Berners and Rev Hugh Berners. Even William Nesfield attended.

Charles and Mary travelled abroad frequently, especially Eygpt and India. In 1875, Charles wrote a book about his adventures abroad: “Two months in Syria; Or, reminiscences of tent life.” In 1889, he travelled to Australia via Ceylon (Sri Lanka). From an early age he led the life of a country gentleman.

In March 1895, he was installed as High Sheriff of Suffolk, accompanied by his wife and his daughter, Mary Alice. He also served as Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Suffolk.

Charles Berners drove the first motorised vehicle to be seen in Ipswich in November 1896, two days after the Red Flag Act. The vehicle was a De Dion powered tricycle which he had bought in Paris a few months earlier. Up to this date he had only been able to use it around the grounds of Woolverstone Park. He drove into Ipswich to visit Mr Popplewell’s cycle shop on the Woodbridge Road. 

To mark Queen Victoria’s Great Jubilee in 1897, Charles financed the building of new Parish Reading Rooms in Chelmondiston.

Charles Hugh also continued the legacy of building within Woolverstone. In 1901, he and Mary commissioned Edwin Lutyens (1869 – 1944) to design a rest home for the Sisters of St Peter’s Community. It was to be called St Peter’s Home and opened in June 1902. Gertrude Jekyll (1843 – 1932) inspired the gardens. During WW1, St Peter’s Home became “Woolverstone Park Hospital” for three and a half years, a convalescent home for wounded soldiers brought from Ipswich Station in Mr Berners’ private ambulance.

Charles Hugh continued the work of his uncle and father to make the estate farmlands highly fertile and efficient. Horses and cattle were kept to  the highest standards, especially the stud for Suffolk horses.  He continued the progressive system of dairying. His interest in modern agricultural appliances can be seen in the introduction of the new roller system of milling at the steam mill, Chelmondiston, in 1892.

He was a member of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club and the Orwell Corinthian Yacht Club. He continued to use the Egret schooner until she was sold in 1894.

Wealth did not bring Charles Hugh an easy family life. His eldest daughter, Mary Alice, married a soldier in secret, a marriage that was troubled from the outset. She divorced Capt. Charles Spencer Warwick in 1907 and the intimate details of the trial were splashed across the newspapers. His wife died in 1911 in Marseilles, returning from a visit to Eygpt. Mary Alice left England for India in 1913, never to return and to live the last twenty years of her life as a man. His youngest son, Hamilton was killed in France in the first months of the war. His grandson, John, killed a year later at Gallipoli. His granddaughters, Gillian and Gwendoline, both married at St Michael’s, both lost their husbands in France. His eldest son John’s marriage became strained and his wife Ethel sued for divorce in 1918 on the grounds of cruelty and adultery. 

Nevertheless, he maintained the Berners family tradition of being kind and generous to all those on the estate and more widely.

Charles Hugh died at Woolverstone on 15^th January 1919. His funeral on 20^th January was well attended. His coffin was brought on the bier through the parkland, surrounded by trusted and long-serving members of the estate. The procession was led by W. B. Pardon, his butler for the last 16 years. Like his father and uncle before him, the coffin was made of oak from the estate. 

The brass plate was inscribed: