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Nigel Corbally-Stourton
Late Grenadier Guards
by The Lord Fermoy
formerly The Blues and Royals
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Nigel Corbally-Stourton died peacefully at his home, The Old Vicarage, next door to the beautiful church in Sherston, Wiltshire, on 5th October 2024. He was 87 years old.
Nigel was born on 9th March 1937 into a pre-war Ireland long since gone. His father Colonel Edward Corbally-Stourton had fought with distinction in the Boer War and the Great War, and was twice wounded, and awarded the DSO and four times mentioned in Despatches.
Nigel was brought up at Corbalton Hall, home to the Corbally-Stourton family for a century and a half. The house came into the family in 1817 when Lord Killeen married Louisa, the only daughter of Elias Corbally. The estate went down the direct line to Mary Elias who married the three titled Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton. 10 children, 4 boys and 6 girls, followed the union. Nigel’s father, Edward Stourton, on inheriting just the estate and no title, took the additional surname of Corbally.
Corbalton Hall was staffed with servants, grooms, and gardeners, with the twenty estate cottages still suffering outside lavatories. Nigel’s idyllic childhood of snipe shooting, hunting, and fishing the River Boyne was soon to change when the estate was sold in 1951.
Nigel was educated at Ampleforth, passed the Army exam then joined Brigade Squad, reporting on 24th June 1955. The family regiment was the Grenadiers with Nigel’s cousins Lord Mowbray and Stourton (down to two titles), Hon Charles Stourton and Captain Michael Stourton, all having served or serving. At Sandhurst, Nigel overcame an early scare of being placed 190 out of 192, but later recovered and promotion to Cadet Sergeant followed.
Nigel was posted to the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards at Victoria Barracks, Windsor and was immediately sent off on the Platoon Weapons Course at Hythe and then the Platoon Commanders’ Course at Warminster. On his return he travelled with the 2nd Battalion to BAOR as a platoon commander, then to the Anti-Tank Platoon and finally as Assistant Adjutant at RHQ. His next posting was to the Guards Depot and then onto the role that defined him when he was selected to be Adjutant at Mons Officer Cadet School. Mons Barracks in Aldershot had trained National Service and Short Service Officer cadets for the Royal Artillery and Royal Armoured Corps but with the end of National Service, it was here that all Short Service Officer Cadets were trained, and also those joining the Regular Army as graduates.
During all of this time Nigel played polo at Smith’s Lawn Windsor; 11 years in all, with many years on the committee. He felt privileged to know, as players, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales (now The King), and Prince William of Gloucester.
Nigel married firstly in 1960, Frances (Fran) Lancaster. Fran’s mother Masiska made the original cardboard scale models on which the prefabricated Mulberry harbour for the invasion of Normandy was based. Three children followed: Edward, Nicholas, and Patrick.
On leaving the Grenadiers from Mons in 1965, Nigel worked in IBM for 25 years. He found the commercial world a culture shock. He set out to change IBM UK’s public image. Environmental issues, the arts, and the disabled benefited from IBM’s extensive charitable support. Before the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, Nigel befriended the late Sir Ludwig Gutmann, a leading German neurologist who had managed to escape from the Nazis in 1939, later creating the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. After the war, he organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled war veterans, later to be known as the Paralympic Games and then the Paralympic Games, which grew to include other disabilities. IBM gave the UK Paraplegic Games massive support. Nigel supported the Centre for World Development Education, mainly fund raising. He was a founder director of the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts under the late Lord Goodman.
Since the publication of Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, about the environmental and human dangers of pesticides, Nigel had focused on long-term environmental issues. He was familiar with the Club of Rome and the members of the Brandt Commission. He spoke at many universities and conventions in Europe. Having travelled extensively with Ted Heath, he had access to Chancellor Brandt, President Carter, Kay Graham, and many other leading figures. As a result, Nigel’s main interest became the future of humankind on an overcrowded planet. He questioned the ignorance and apathy in Westminster. Up to his death he championed, with absolutely certainty, the view that chasing CO2 emissions since the 2015 Paris Agreement had achieved nothing. The science to him clearly indicated that Natural Source Methane, mainly from the vast Arctic thawing permafrost on land and sea (mainly Russia) is the cause of today’s disasters.
In 1985 Jim Hansen, then Chief Climate scientist at NASA, sought Nigel’s support for the UN Global Resource Information Data Base in Geneva and Nairobi. IBM agreed to help. Thus, Nigel was invited as sole guest speaker at the UN World NGO Conference in New York in 1987. His theme was ‘The Imbalance between World Population, the Environment and World Resources’. He forecast that our failure to think long term about the implications of mass migration and human misery, would eventually cause the collapse of our civilisation.
Latterly, Nigel collaborated with his son Patrick, the Australian art dealer. They travelled extensively and published a book on Aboriginal painting. Tragically Patrick was killed flying in Australia in 2002.
Nigel married my mother, Lavinia Fermoy (née Pitman) in 1995. Horses played a large part in Nigel’s and Lavinia’s lives well into their late seventies. They rode in Botswana, India, South Africa, South America, and USA, and canoed the Zambezi. Nigel shot well and stalked on the west coast for 40 years. He caught salmon or sea trout in twenty-four rivers but failed to make his target of thirty.
Nigel’s love of gardens sprang from his mother and his uncle, the late Russell Page OBE, who Nigel thought was the most important landscape architect since the 18th Century. With Lavinia, they took 25 Australian garden enthusiasts on a tour of his uncle’s European gardens in 1998, visiting Capri, Ischia, Naples, Rome, Turin, and Normandy. Nigel was honoured to be a guest at the White House, representing his late uncle, at the dedication of the Capital Columns project in the USA National Arboretum, Washington. Nigel did not claim his uncle’s skills, and said Lavinia was the better plants person. Together they made lovely gardens at their homes at Axford, the Cotswolds, Sherston, and in Spain.
Throughout his life Nigel was mindful of his Catholic heritage; the Stourtons are among the oldest Catholic families in the country. He was sad about some aspects of his own family life, and particularly the loss of his son Patrick at such an early age. However, this sadness was diminished by the happiness he experienced in his years with Lavinia and her family. He was a man of high principle, old-fashioned manners, and good taste. Few people knew Nigel well, but those who did will miss him. |
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