Miles Watson, 2nd Baron Manton (1899–1968), (born George Miles Watson), of

Compton Verney Compton Verney is a parish and historic manor in the county of Warwickshire, England. The population taken at the 2011 census was 119. The surviving manor house is the Georgian mansion Compton Verney House. Descent of the manor The first r ...

, Warwickshire and

Plumpton Place Plumpton Place is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Plumpton, East Sussex, England. Description Plumpton Place looks onto the nearby north-facing escarpment of the South Downs, with Plumpton College (formerly Plumpton Agricultural Co ...

, East Sussex, was an English peer and racehorse breeder.

Origins

George Miles Watson was born on 21 June 1899. He was the eldest son of

Joseph Watson, 1st Baron Manton Joseph Watson, 1st Baron Manton (10 February 1873 – 13 March 1922) was an English industrialist from Leeds, Yorkshire. He was chairman of Joseph Watson & Sons Ltd, soap manufacturers of Leeds, and a director of the London and North-Western ...

(1873–1922), the Leeds soap magnate, by his wife (Frances) Claire Nickols, daughter of Harold Nickols of Sandford House, Kirkstall, Leeds. Watson had three younger brothers, Robert Fraser, Alastair Joseph, and Richard Mark Watson, all born by 1906. He was educated at Harrow.

Succeeds father

He succeeded as 2nd Baron Manton on the death of his father in 1922. In 1927 he sold the Manton estate and racehorse training establishment near Marlborough, Wiltshire, which had been purchased by his father. In 1929 he sold the

estate to Samuel Lamb, a cotton manufacturer from Manchester. However unfortunately (with much general disapproval (see reports in The Times newspaper)) before the sale he removed the mediaeval stained glass (with heraldry of the Verney family) from the chapel, which he sold in 1931 in four lots at Christie's. Much went to the USA, although some is now in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow and in the Market Hall Museum, Warwick.

Career

In the 1920s Manton had been a jockey under National Hunt Rules. having sold his father's briefly-owned seat of Compton Verney, in 1938 he purchased

near Lewes in Sussex, where he established a racehorse stud. Hard Sauce, produced there, sired the winner of the 1958 Derby, Hard Ridden. For the British Bloodstock Agency, he travelled to India and South America. With his brother Robert he was a director of Newmarket Bloodstock Ltd.

Marriages and progeny

He married twice: *Firstly on 18 April 1923, to Alethea Alys Mary Pauline Langdale, 2nd daughter and co-heiress of Lt.Col. Philip Joseph Langdale, OBE, JP, DL, of

Houghton Hall Houghton Hall ( ) is a country house in the parish of Houghton in Norfolk, England. It is the residence of David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. It was commissioned by the ''de facto'' first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walp ...

, Sancton, Yorkshire. Alathea filed for divorce in 1934, which was granted in 1936. *Secondly on 1 June 1938, he married Leila Joan Reynolds daughter of Major Philip Guy Reynolds, DSO and formerly the wife of Lt.Col. John Dane Player III (1903-1943), of Friars Well, Wartnaby, Leicestershire, who was killed in action in the Middle East in 1943, a director of

John Player & Sons John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. In 1901, the company merged with other companies to form The Imperial Tobacco Company to face competition from US ma ...

tobacco manufacturers founded by his grandfather, and of

Imperial Tobacco Imperial Brands plc (formerly Imperial Tobacco Group plc), is a British multinational tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, England. It is the world's fourth-largest international cigarette company measured by market share after Philip Mor ...

, who had cited Manton in his own divorce proceedings, starting in 1937. She became after Manton's death Lady Brownlow, having married, as his 3rd wife,

Peregrine Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow Peregrine Francis Adelbert Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow (27 April 1899 – 28 July 1978), often known as Perry Brownlow, was a British peer and courtier. He was the son of Adelbert Salusbury Cockayne Cust, 5th Baron Brownlow, and his wife Maud B ...

of Belton House, Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Death

Manton died in June 1968 at his home Plumpton Place. On his death, the title passed to his son and only child by his first wife Alethea Langdale, Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton.

References

External links

Compton Verney House website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manton, George Miles Watson, 2nd Baron 1899 births 1968 deaths Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom People educated at Harrow School