On the evening of Sunday 11 November 2018, a large crowd gathered at the top of the hill to light a new beacon in remembrance of the fallen from Quainton in the Great War when 23 Quainton men were killed. In the Second World War, the village lost only three men.
Photograph courtesy of Joshua Karmali
Greetings David and congratulations on the beautifully presented account of your family, life and times.
Back row L-R: Frank George Cundy, test driver for Napier Cars (seen in picture below driving a Napier in Romania). He married Lena Connell who then became known as Beatrice Cundy; 4th from left, a youthful Robert Speaight in a sailor suit, who became a prominent actor and writer. Front row L-R: Lena Connell, well-known artist and photographer was active in the Suffragette movement, painting its leading members – fourteen of these paintings are in the National Portrait Gallery archives; 5th from left Granny Cundy, her daughter Alice, a well-known miniaturist, married to Richard Speaight, and their son Richard Langford. Richard was a distinguished photographer with studios in Bond Street. He photographed the Royal family. This was taken in 1912 at the family home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire - a moment of quiet before the world was turned upside down by the Great War.
My name is Margaret Weston and I am writing to you on behalf of my husband Tim Cundy who would occupy a small corner of your family tree if it were to be extended laterally. Tim’s grandfather Frank George Cundy is a brother of Alice Langford Cundy who was married to Richard Speaight. Tim (born 1949) remembers his grandfather well from the 50s and 60s. We have some of Alice’s lovely miniatures and if you could let us have contact details for John, Nonie and Cecily – who I guess are Tim’s second cousins, we would be happy to send them scanned images. We also have some of Frank George’s wonderful photo albums from his time as a pioneer motor engineer and driver.
Reading your account it seems that there are several other points of overlap: Tim grew up in Bucks not far from where you are now; indeed, it seems the extended family were pretty much based in London and to its north for generations. In terms of my own (not-connected) story there are African links: in 1961 my father AB Weston was the inaugural dean of the law faculty at the University of Dar es Salaam, and my mother subsequently worked for the UN in Zambia and Turkey.
Portrait of prominent suffragist Viscountess Snowden by Lena Connell
Tim was at Cambridge; I went to Oxford where I overlapped with Anthony Speaight and I believe we had friends in common. Thirty years ago Tim and I came to New Zealand with our three young sons for an adventure, and have remained here ever since. He is at the Medical School at the University of Auckland and I am a psychologist currently working with families of refugee background.
Since we’ve been in New Zealand we have learned to appreciate the value attached by Maori to family connections, and the true meaning of whanau (= extended family). We do hope you will be comfortable to put us in touch with Alice’s grandchildren.
Frank George Cundy putting a Napier through its paces - above, in Romania probably taken in 1911, and below at Brooklands.
With warm regards
Margaret Weston and Tim Cundy
