Muriel Agnes Savory

Muriel (‘Angie’) married Cecil Paddon, a very much travelled man who, for that reason possibly, was not seen by Arthur Ledsam Savory as a suitable match for his daughter. However, one day when he was having lunch in the Savoy Grill, he saw a jolly party in one corner of the room. It was Angie and Cecil’s wedding breakfast.

They had one son, John, who clarified the background of his father’s family:

“My grandmother, Rebecca Porter Somerset, married Charles John Paddison at Caldecote near Cambridge in June 1874, my father Cecil John Paddison was born on 21st April 1875 (Cecil John Rhodes was his Godfather). My grandfather Rebecca divorced C.J. Paddison on January 1879 for cruelty and adultery. She promptly married Samuel Wreford Paddon on 17th May 1879. Owing to the similarity of the two surnames, my father acquired the name Paddon by common use. I only discovered this skeleton in 1956 during a conversation with my uncle Phil Paddon’s partner.

“Samuel and Rebecca Paddon lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, moving later to Earl’s Court Square (at the time when the Savorys went to Braham Gardens). Rebecca was drawn and painted by several known Victorian artists, Whistler, Frank Miles, Sandys, Holman Hunt and I believe Rosa Korda, all of whom lived on or around Cheyne Walk.

“My father was chucked out the house when he was 16 and went to Rhodes in Kimberley, South Africa, where he was in time to become the youngest member of the Pioneer Column which occupied Matabeland in 1892/93. After a fascinating career in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Natal, the Klondike and back to South Africa for the Boer War, he returned to Canada in the early 1900s, joined the Canadian Hussars as a Captain and became Inspector of Small Arms for Canada. At about this time he married Mary Emma Pope in Canada. They were soon divorced; I learn about this when another Paddon turned up in the Prisoner of War (P.o.W) camp in Germany in 1944: my father then returned to England to race at Brooklands and some early flying with Tommy Sopwith. At this time he married my mother on 24th August 1911, they promptly left to manage a silver mine in the Sonora Province of Mexico.”

Prior to her marriage, Muriel organised the Child Welfare Service for the London County Council. During the War she was the matron of a Military Hospital at Foremark Hall.

During World War 1, (1914-1918) Cecil Paddon served with the New Zealand forces. He was wounded at Gallipoli, where Reginald Savory came across him in the following circumstances on 6th August 1915. Reginald had gone into a field dressing station, to find out what was going on in the forward lines…

“As I was leaving through the heavily sand-bagged entrance of the dressing station, I heard a voice saying “Hello Reg!” and smelt cigar smoke. I looked down. On the stretcher, at my feet, lay my brother-in-law, Major Cecil Paddon, of the Otago Mounted Rifles, badly wounded in the leg, but fairly cheerful and smoking a black Burma cheroot… he was as surprised to see me as I was him. We had a few words together. He told me what he knew; we said good-bye; and I hurried back with such information as I had been able to gather.”

Following 20 operations as a result of his wounds received at Gallipoli, Cecil Paddon, and his family, moved to Needs Ore near Beaulieu in Hampshire, in order that he might rest and recuperate. That didn’t last very long. Cecil became the founder member of the Ocean Racing Club (now the Royal Ocean Racing Club) and took part in the Fastnet Races in 1925 and 1926. In 1926/27 he went round the world and in 1928 to Australasia, testing radio equipment for the BBC radio engineers.

In August 1938 he left the UK for Rhodesia. Cecil Paddon died in Bulawayo in 1962. His death was reported in the local newspaper:

“Bulawayo’s only survivor of the 1893 Pioneer Column, Major Cecil John Somerset Paddon died on Saturday aged 87. Major Paddon, who had Paddonhurst named after him, first came to Rhodesia in 1892. He travelled in an ox-wagon with three South Africans – a hunter and two transport carriers. After a hunting trip in the area south of Fort Victoria, Major Paddon joined the Victoria Column, signing on as a gunner with the Artillery under Captain Lendy. He was then 18. The column marched on Bulawayo and he saw action in the Shangani and Matabele.

“Major Paddon was in the Klondyke when the South African war broke out. He hurried back to Africa to join Lochs Horse, and then the Ross Machine Gun Battery. He later joined the Transversal Constabulary. He was in Mexico at the time of the Pancho Villa and Carranza revolutions in 1911. He and his wife got away on the last train to Arizona.

“He fought during World War I and was wounded in action.

“In 1942 Major Paddon was made a freeman of the City of Bulawayo and in 1953 he was awarded the O.B.E.”.

Muriel died on 26 May 1967, aged 84.

Muriel and Cecil had one son:

John Rollo Somerset Paddon

Born on 5th January 1920, John was, in his father’s mind, destined for a career in the army and to that end was sent to Wellington. John so hated it that he ran away and never returned.

On arrival in Rhodesia in 1938, John became a trainee mining engineer. This was a protected job, but by 1940 e was called up as a gunner. He served with 4th Rhodesia Anti-Tank Battery in East Africa and then with the 4th R.H.A. in Italian Somaliland, the Western Desert, Crete and Abyssinia. He was captured by the Germans on 26th May 1942 at Bir Hacheim. He was a PoW in Italy but escaped in 1943. He was recaptured by Germans. He was in Stalag IX C and worked in the salt mines for 18 months and sugar beet factories for 6 months, twice escaping. The first time he was caught riding a stolen bike on the autobahn. He was given three weeks’ solitary confinement, plus two months work in a stone quarry, as a result. After his second escape in April 1945, he joined up with an Anti-tank company of the 3rd U.S. Army with whom he served for three weeks, before being flown back to the UK.

After returning to Rhodesia, he resumed his mining career, but was not allowed to work underground owing to lung trouble caused by his time in the salt mines. In 1946, he therefore joined the Land Settlement Scheme trained as a farmer, following which he as given some land and left to get on with it. He sold out in 1956. He then, with a partner, when prospecting. They discovered a new chrome deposit which they mined until 1962. Following his father’s death that year, John now married, returned to England. After a year at the Royal Agricultural College, he farmed in Lincoln until 1969, before moving to Dorset.

He married Gesa Voegt of Hamburg on 10th October 1958. They had three children: Susan Jane Somerset (born 31 March 1959); Christina Anne Somerset (born 26 November 1960); and Edward John Somerset (born 12 January 1967).