Thomas Merthyr Guest was born 18th January 1838, the 2nd son (4th child of 10) of Sir Josiah John Guest (1785-1852), 1st Baronet, F.R.S., Liberal M.P. for Merthyr since 1831; and Charlotte Bertie (1812-1895), daughter of the n9th Earl of Lindsey. The family gained its wealth from its iron, steel and coal business at Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil - hence the derivation of the Christian name.
He obtained a B.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge; became a major in the Dorset Yeomanry cavalry; J.P. and D.L. On the death of his father, the family business was left equally to the five sons. Lady Charlotte was to marry again, to the younger tutor of her eldest son Ivor - the future 1st Baron Wimborne. Although the main Guest family home since about 1850 had now been at Canford Manor, near Poole, Dorset, Merthyr's own family home may well have been Inwood, near Henstridge, Somerset.
Merthyr Guest was married on 8th March 1877 to Lady Theodora Grosvenor. She had been born in 1840, the youngest of thirteen children of the 2nd Marquess of Westminster. As part of the celebrations, an ox was roasted in the Old Cattle Market at Shaftesbury - see illustration.
The Guests were to subsequently have one daughter, Elizabeth Augusta Grosvenor ('Aura'), born 18th September 1879 at Motcombe House, near Shaftesbury. She was never to marry.
Merthyr Guest was thought to have been a stockbroker. Unlike his father and some of his brothers he never stood for Parliament. He occupied himself with hunting, and collecting antiques (a family passion started by his mother Lady Charlotte). He was an expert on old prints, china and furniture.
He was to be Master of the Blackmoor Vale Hunt 1884-1900. He was not to take any subscriptions, but expected all who hunted to subscribe to the Poultry Fund. He kept his hunt servants to grey horses, of which he had a stud of some 80 horses. He hunted six days a week with 100 couple of dogs in kennels. He was said to have had a wonderful pack of hounds, including Brocklesby dogs that he bought in 1895. He was one of the founders of the Hunt Servants' Benevolent Society. His was an autocratic rule in the field, but the debt that the country owed to him, coupled with his many kindnesses, amply compensated for the discipline that he enforced, being a martinet, dressed on old-fashioned dress, and sporting a fierce bushy beard. He was always to be well to the front. He put up a hunting-bridge over the Caundle Stream near Waterloo Gorse. Reminiscences of him may be found in Foxhunting in Dorset by Ralph Greaves, c.1961.
His wife, Lady Theodora Grosvenor, was said to be always beautifully mounted, and one of the best ladies to hounds of her day. She had spent most of her early life at Motcombe House, north of Shaftesbury, being educated\ privately. Her parents gave her a strict moral upbringing, successfully instilling the principle of noblesse oblige. She was to be a devout, low church Anglican. When her father died in 1869 she began to undertake many duties on behalf of her mother, and other good works. She rode regularly to hounds, once breaking her leg on a gate-post; and she was to found the Hunt Servants Benefit Society in 1872. In 1879 she and her husband Merthyr Guest were to move from Fifehead Magdalen to make their new home at Inwood House, Henstridge. At Inwood he had a collection of over 160 hunting-horns. Lady Theodora continued with her charitable works.
When Merthyr Guest offered the hounds to the Hunt committee on his resignation in 1900, his stipulation that ears were never to be rounded or branded, or dew-claws cut, was not accepted, and so they were sold. The same year he bought the Purse Caundle manor house from the Huddlestones, but seemingly continued to live at Inwood.
In July and August 1904 he had some caustic correspondence with an unknown recipient, but probably the rector of Purse Caundle, the Rev. G. A. Cowan. It concerned the church tower, with apparently plans and an estimate to remove the extensive ivy which had been covering it "for a good many years & we see no difference in it that would call for unnecessary expenditure on it. A few shillings discretely laid out would do all the repairs needed." He continued in this first letter: "If however you intend to spend any money there it is only fair to tell you that if you hack, cut, mutilate or injure the ivy in any way I will not give a farthing to help you - as that would hopelessly ruin the Tower." In a second letter he enquired: "I have yours asking again for a subscription to your church Tower. Before answering it definitely, I should wish to know - Have you cut any of the ivy off the Tower - or trimmed or cut the ivy in any way?" In a third (an final) letter he wrote: "Conditionally on our understanding on the part of yourself & all concerned in the Parish, that the ivy on the Church Tower shall not be cut or trimmed in any way, or wilfully damaged or hurt I wd give you a subscription towards your Tower fund. But it wd only be on that Condition & Undertaking - in Writing (underlined). As to the Warming I do not see the necessity. Mr Newman & you & I dress accordingly to the temperature we expect to encounter in winter - whether indoors or out. Your church has not required heating before now, why should it now?" (DHC ref: PE/PCD: CW 5/1)
He died on 5th November 1904, aged 66. In his memory his widow Lady Theodora built and ran a cottahe hospital at Templecombe.
It was noticed by this writer that the heavy-duty key-ring to which the church door-key is attached carries the following two inscriptions:
'MERTHYR GUEST, ESQ. KENNELS. CHARLTON HAWTHORNE'; and on the other side '1ST WHIPPER IN'
This circumstance may have come about due to Purse Caundle manor house having its own church key, for the use of visitors to the manor house.
Lady Theodora, whilst at the manor house, is believed c.1906 to have given brooches to two of the Holloway girls of Purse Caundle - one being a mourning-brooch (see illustration).
She sold Purse Caundle manor house and five acres of land to Lady Victoria Herbert in 1920 (see APPENDIX C1G).
Lady Theodora died at Inwood on 24th March 1924, being buried at Henstridge. The Times described her as 'a grand Dame of the old school'.In 1913, Merthyr and Lady Theodora Guest's daughter, Miss Augusta Guest J.P., of Inwood, who had inherited her parents' love of hunting, took over the country around Stalbridge, and Templecombe to the north, hunting with her own hounds. By 1924 they were hunting two days a week. In 1927 she was invited to also hunt on thre outskirts of the Sparkford Vale on one additional day a week. The same year she bought Purse Caundle's Old Rectory.
Photographs of these three hunting Guests can be found in The Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt by Clare Griffith-Jones, 1982, and in With Hound and Terrier in the Field by Alys F. Serrell, 1904.
On the outbreak of WW2, Miss Augusta Guest joined Colonel F. J. B. Wingfield Digby in Joint Mastership of the Blackmore Hunt, with the prime object of keeping down foxes. Fixture meets in Purse Caundle were held at the Manor House and Tripps Farm limekiln. She continued in this arrangement with a succession of other joint-masters until 1959, when she was joined by Count de Pelet - a possible relative. Further details of Miss Guest may be found in The Official Handbook of The Blackmore Vale Hunt by Ralph Greaves, c.1966.
On her death at Inwood on 16th June 1960, she had been a Master of Hounds for 51 years, at which time Count de Pelet became in full charge of the Hunt. (Country Life, 23rd November 1961)
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