John Granville Cornwallis Eliot (1890 - 1922)

John was the third child and second son of Henry Eliot and Emily Labouchere, known to family and friends as Mousie.

"Mousie" Eliot, never expected to become the sixth Earl St. Germans. While his birth in 1890 was greeted with much happiness and joy, there was (naturally) no trace of the pomp accorded to the birth of his older brother, heir to the earldom. The announcement in the leading local newspaper, the Royal Cornwall Gazette, was quite simple:

Another local paper, the Cornishman, reported on a more personal level about the feelings of the local townspeople at the happy news:
The Countess of St Germans gave birth to a son on Wednesday. Lord and Lady St Germans are so deservedly popular with every class of people in the neighbourhood of their Cornish home that the interesting event has caused the greatest satisfaction. Before this his lordship's family consisted of only one son, Lord Eliot, who was born 30th August, 1885.

This little fellow was given some impressive names: John (for Sir John Eliot the Patriot), Granville (for his paternal uncle who died at Inkerman), and Cornwallis (for his paternal great-greatgrandfather, the famous General Cornwallis). Mousie was a happy and very good natured fellow – definitely with a fine sense of humour – whose passions from a young age were for hunting, shooting and racing. (He would spend the rest of his short life trying to preserve these gentlemanly pursuits, in order to "keep Old England going".) Mousies's younger years are clouded in obscurity, his having quietly passed through schooling by private tutors and a year at the Royal Military Academy. He will have had no idea of what laid ahead of him, for he succeeded to the family title and estate at the age of twenty-one, only after a long string of unexpected and early deaths. His father, Henry (fifth son of the third Earl St. Germans), at the ripe age of 46, had unexpectedly, after the untimely deaths of all his older brothers, succeeded to the Earldom and inherited the estate. Mousie himself was the second son of this 5th Earl, just as unexpectedly acquiring the heir's honorary title of Lord Eliot only after the untimely death of his older brother in 1909.

Mousie's time as Earl was rather short, spanning less than ten full years, three of which he spent on active service in France during the first World War. He served his country admirably in the trenches, showing courage and bravery under fire, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. As a great fan of the comedian Harry Tate and others of the period (as well as being an accomplished amateur actor and comedian himself), Mousie used his own comedic gifts to strengthen the morale of his fellow officers and men during some of the darkest times in English military annals. Comedy routines and theatrical performances were regularly performed by him and his friends (most often under his direction), not the least of which was the renowned four-night 1915 Christmas show in France.

In 1917, Mousie received severe wounds to his face and head, when a shell exploded nearby as he climbed over a parapet. He spent time in St. Agnes' Hospital and was invalided home, being ruled unfit for further combat service. While Mousie obviously missed his friends in the Scots Greys at the fighting front, he made the best of the situation at home and, in June of 1918, married Lady Blanche Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort (who, interestingly enough, was his fourth cousin once removed). Family life suited him, and people who saw them together said that it was obvious that Mousie and Blanchie "found their chief delight in each other's company." They spent much of their time participating in hunts and point-to-point races, where Mousie rode very well and often won. Unfortunately, these idyllic times came to an abrupt end in April 1921. It was at the Wrangaton Point-to-Point that Mousie was thrown from the saddle and then crushed by his falling horse. Suffering from internal injuries and a broken pelvis, he underwent a number of operations, followed by a long, slow recovery. In a final effort to regain his health, he went to South Africa for a change in climate. Only a few days after his arrival, however, the heirless Earl succumbed to a sudden attack of pneumonia and "very very" quietly slipped away from this life and all who knew and loved him.

As an Earl, Mousie followed admirably in his beloved father's footsteps, endearing himself to his tenants as a kind, honest and approachable landlord. He knew all of the villagers personally, and his knowledge of agricultural matters was "far beyond his years." Few of the Earls of St. Germans could boast such affection from their tenants, and it was the end of an era for the little Cornish village when the news of Mousie's sudden death reached St. Germans. The bells tolled out in mournful peals, and the estate passed (again, unexpectedly) to Mousie's much-older cousin, Jack – a retired bank clerk living in a mental hospital. Looking back on this, a hundred years later, it all seems like just another name and date in the line of succession, but the sadness of this event (and the life-changing repercussions felt by the villagers and tenants) becomes quite real again when you read the words of Rev. H.R. Hindley of the St. Germans Wesleyan Chapel (extracted from his eulogy for their dearly-beloved Earl, given on 30 Apr 1922):

"The older inhabitants of our village and neighbourhood experience, therefore, in addition to their keen sense of personal sorrow, a feeling of sympathetic grief at the misfortunes of a family whom they have learned to love. Many of you were serving on the estate when it passed into the hands of this branch of the Eliot family, and your personal regret deepens into social sorrow as you realize that by the untimely death of Lord St. Germans a strong link with the past has been severed. The glory has departed from a house which has long been the summit of your social ideals, and has lent true British dignity to the life of our quiet village. Your hearts fill with grim foreboding as you reflect that traditions which you learned from your parents and have taught your children to revere now lie in ruins. You feel that the grave which will be opened on Tuesday to receive the mortal remains of a courteous gentleman, a gallant soldier, and a considerate landlord will be the grave of your family pride and of all your proudest hopes.

These feelings of desire to recall the past and dread of living in the future, besides being incidental to the mind in later years, are very natural to our old and much-respected inhabitants, especially under circumstances so peculiarly tragic as the present. Many of them have spent the best years of a long, hard life on this estate, faithfully discharging to the very letter their obligations as tenants or employees. They were assured of a comfortable livelihood for the remainder of their days, being satisfied, beyond all possibility of misgiving, that their lamented master and landlord would, with equal honour, discharge his obligation to them and theirs. Here again, many have gratefully spoken of the provision made for them in their closing years, declaring that by the passing of our late Earl they have lost their best friend."

There are so many photographs and articles surviving about Mousie that the only way to include them all here would seem to be by spreading them onto multiple pages by topic! Just click on the buttons below to view corresponding pages.