Unlikely Connections?

Robin, Edmund and Felix

The things one discovers when writing a biography! One day I was browsing through the annual group photographs of University College, Oxford. I swiftly identified the young R.G. Collingwood and let my eyes travel across the picture to see whether I could identify his friends and acquaintances. I was rather surprised (is horrified the better word?) to see an undergraduate who looked the spitting image of Jacob Rees-Mogg. It seemed incredible; but it was possible. So I checked and discovered that Jacob Rees-Mogg’s grandfather, Edmund, had indeed been an undergraduate at University College at the same time as Collingwood. He was studying Literae Humaniores. Collingwood must have known him, but there is no mention of him anywhere in his correspondence, so it doesn’t appear that they were friends. In the official record of Oxford University Gazette Rees-Mogg appears as “Rees-Mogg, Edmundus F.” It seems fitting and I’m sure his grandson would have liked it. However, he graduated with a second class degree in Literae Humaniores, so perhaps his Latin wasn’t perfect.

But there’s more! Edmund Fletcher Rees-Mogg (1889-1962) was born and lived at Cholwell House in Somerset. In 1920 after a whirlwind romance he married an American actress, Beatrice Warren, the daughter of a rich Irish-American, Daniel Warren. Apparently it was his wife’s money that enabled his lifestyle as a country gentleman and the wherewithal to devote himself to local politics. In later life he became High Sheriff of Somerset: meanwhile, in his life and work he seems to have differed somewhat from his son and grandson. In the words of the entry in the website American Aristocracy:

During World War II, he was Chairman of the Clutton Rural District Council and served as High Sheriff of Somerset in 1945. He was Alderman of the Somerset County Council and for many years he was Chairman of the Council’s General Purposes & Welfare Committees. As Chairman of Welfare, he was responsible for opening ten homes for the elderly. He was Chairman of Mendip Hospital and the Temple Cloud Bench of Magistrates. His obituary stated that, “in all his voluntary work he was remarkable for his gift of chairmanship, his judicial sense, and for his interest in the welfare of old people”. He was survived by his widow, two daughters and a son (William) whose views on the welfare system – shared by William’s son, former M.P. Jacob Rees-Mogg – were polar opposite to his own. (https://americanaristocracy.com/people/edmund-fletcher-rees-mogg)

Perhaps we can forgive the lapses in Latin!

Meanwhile, back at University College … Collingwood and Rees-Mogg’s time at University College coincided with that of Prince Yusopov, the Russian Count later to be implicated in the murder of Grigori Rasputin. Prince Yusopov joined them at University College in October 1909, operating under the thinly veiled disguise of “Felix, Count Soumarokoff Elston”. E.F. Carritt, the philosophy tutor at University College remarks in his privately published Fifty Years a Don (1964) that “I should perhaps also name Prince Usupov, Count Elston, who gave me lunch with a pet bear-cub under the table.” He says nothing of Yusopov’s activities on his return to Russia; perhaps he never knew of them.

Robin Collingwood, in a letter to his younger sister, Ursula, in October 1909 comments that “Many other freshmen are charming: especially one Hamilton …who has been an art-student but has tendencies towards holy orders: and a rather sweet foreign Baron from Russia or somewhere.” This was Eric Hamilton and Prince Felix Yusopov. Christopher Dobson remarks that

There was more than a touch of Brideshead Revisited about his stay in Oxford. Using his grandfather’s title of ‘Count Elston’ in an unlikely attempt at anonymity, he was watched over by clerics and important friends of his family. England seemed to be full of members of the Imperial Family exiled for contracting morganatic marriages and they were anxious for news of Russia — and especially of Rasputin. The Bishop of London introduced him to Eric Hamilton, a young man who was also going up to Oxford. They became close friends and remained so all their lives. Hamilton went into the church and became Dean of Windsor.”

Prince Felix Yusupov: The Man Who Murdered Rasputin (1989)

Yusupov married the niece of Nicholas II and moved in the highest royal Moscow circles. The exact degree, if any, of Yusopov’s involvement in the death of Rasputin is blurred and contested and it appears unlikely that he was guilty of the deed, although he might have had knowledge of it after the event.

I don’t know what conversations Collingwood Prince Yusopov had. Perhaps they discussed Collingwood’s close friend, Arthur Ransome, who from 1912 visited Russia many times, later as a newspaper correspondent. Ransome witnessed various revolutionary events, played chess with Lenin, and married Trotsky’s secretary? I don’t suppose they discussed Rasputin – but they could have. Collingwood and the Russian Connection? I’ve seen conspiracy theories built on less.

Collingwood is on the far left and Rees Mogg on the far right. No political point intended.

Prince Yusopov (Count Soumarokoff Elston) at University College