| Maker | Mawdley (Roy) Herapath Sambourne, only son of Linley and Marion Sambourne was born on 19 August 1878. After three years at Albion House School for the Sons of Gentlemen, Margate, he entered Eton in 1891 and remained there until 1896. In 1898 he went up to Oxford (University College) but left in 1900 without taking his degree. Afterwards, he went into the City as a jobber on the Stock Exchange. Shortly after his father's death in 1910, his mother put up £5000 which enabled Roy to enter into partnership with Ernest Pohl, their company trading as Pohl and Sambourne (later Pole and Sambourne, then Sambourne & Co). Life in the City proved uncongenial, but Roy continued to develop his many outside interests. He was a member of several Clubs including the Queen's Club, Fulham, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Garrick and the Athenaeum. Always a keen sportsman, he played cricket and tennis in summer and skated in winter. From 1921 he also took regular dancing lessons. In addition, he was an enthusiastic theatre-goer and counted a number of actresses amongst his friends. Although declared medically unfit for active service in 1915, Roy was gazetted Lieutenant to the Fourth Reserve Battalion before being transferred to the Royal West Kent Regiment at Tunbridge Wells in October 1916, where he was promoted to Captain in May 1917. After demobilization in January 1919, he returned to Stafford Terrace and resumed his work in the City. In 1915, he took his first cruise holiday, an experience he repeated every year from 1932-39. During World War Two, Roy lived mainly at his sister's Sussex country home Nymans, commuting up to the City each day and checking on Stafford Terrace in the afternoons. He died on 15 July 1946, leaving the house and its contents to his sister Maud. |