King George's Aide-de-Camp
BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES ERNEST GRAHAM NORTON CB, CSI (1869-1953), my
godfather, served King George V as Aide-de-Camp from 1918 until 1926.
He was my family's chief conduit for gossip from Buckingham Palace even after he retired.
Charles was the son of Joseph Norton, JP, of Nortonthorpe Hall, near Huddersfield, now a school for boys and girls
with psychological problems.
Educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, Charles joined the 7th
Queen's Own Hussars in 1889.
He served in Matabeleland 1896-97 and was mentioned in despatches during the South African War.
Early in World War I he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Queen's Own.
For the last two years of the war he commanded the 7th Cavalry Brigade of the Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia,
now called Iraq.
He then went to the War Office and was Director of Remounts from 1921 until 1925.
In 1906 Charles married Mary Darley, neé Boucicault (died 1927).
John St. Helier Lander in 1910 portrayed Charles and Mary nearly life-sized in the oil paintings shown above in their
original frames made by Chapman Brothers of Chelsea.
George V and other members of the British Royal Family sat to Lander.
Sadly, a charming large pastel of Mary (below right) has crumbled to pieces.
It was made in 1908 by Harrison Miller, who mastered many styles of painting, including miniature portraiture.
Marie
─ as she listed herself in the phone book ─ was the daughter of Arthur Leslie Bourcicault and Charlotte Martha, neé Clarke.
Bourcicault (left), a journalist, had emigrated to Queensland, Australia where he founded the Rockhampton Argus
newspaper in 1863.
He was one of the four sons of Samuel Boursiquot, a Dublin merchant of French Huguenot extraction.
Arthur's brother Dion (who changed his surname to Boucicault without the 'r') was world-famous as a playwright, actor and manager.
Dion's actress daughter Nina created the role of Peter Pan ─ when she was aged 37!
Mary's sister Ernestine Eliza Effie ─ Nina for short ─
in 1899 married William Knox D'Arcy, a Rockhampton gold mining millionaire.
Soon he almost went bankrupt prospecting in Persia, but he struck oil and became a millionaire again,
founding the parent company of BP.
At the outbreak of World War II Charles evacuated from his flat in Mayfair's Park Street.
He rented a house at Ambleside in the Lake District.
My aunt Daphne stayed there as his guest together with Mrs. Darley, Mary's relative.
The two women delighted the old man by fighting like cats for his attention.
When I was a child Uncle Charles used to enthrall me by taking out his right eye
─ it was made of glass.
As a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society he gave my mother passes to the Regents Park Zoo so that she could
have me taken behind the scenes ─ even to have a polar bear cub nearly my own size
lick my hand with his rough black tongue.
When I was older Uncle Charles sometimes took me to lunch at the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly, where his friend
Major George McLaughlin, my grandfather, had also been a member.
Charles's decorations and army medal bar. Left to right: Companion of
the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, British South Africa Company's Medal
awarded for the campaign to suppress the Matabele tribe in Rhodesia 1896,
Queen's South Africa Medal with 5 bars (South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902,
Transvaal, Orange Free State, Cape Colony), British War Medal, Victory Medal
with oak leaf emblem indicating Mention in Despatches, Delhi Durbar Medal issued
to commemorate King George V's 1911 Coronation Durbar celebration in British
India, Companion of The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India.
© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use
is prohibited without advance permission from
Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.