30th Generation

154. Robert William Francis "Wee" Wilberforce JP³ was born on 30 October 1905. He died on 17 December 1984 at the age of 79 in Billericay. He was also known as Wee. Educ Ampleforth and Oriel; 134th Field Regt RA (TA) - L G Pine

Served in WW II with 134th Field Regt RA (TA). He was a partner in Travers-Smith, Braithwaite & Co

Robert William Francis "Wee" Wilberforce JP and Marion Katharine Ogilvie-Forbes were married on 3 September 1932. Marion Katharine Ogilvie-Forbes died on 17 December 1995. Pilot:Joined the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1940, with the hazardous job of ferrying all types of aircraft from factories to Aircraft Storage Units and despatch points, and on to operational stations...She was first deputy and then commanding officer of the inaugural women's Ferry Pool at Hatfield, and in 1943 became Commander of the No 12 Ferry Pool at Cosford, one of only two women pool commanders in the whole ATA.
...By mid 1941 Marion Wilberforce was flying operational machines including Hurricanes and Spitfires which she piloted as a matter of course. The first Spitfire she flew was donated by the citizens of Grimsby and accordingly called Grimsby II. During 1942 she mastered the whole gamut of twin engined medium bombers including the Wellington and Mosquito. Two years later she became one of only eleven women pilots trained to fly four engined bombers such as the Lancaster...
...When she was eighty she decided that the time had come to give up flying...In peace time she was best known in aviation as someone who did was she was not meant to do, whether it was skirting the ground at two hundred feet to avoid radar when on a route she shouldn't have been on, or disrupting a NATO exercise.

Hunting: She took to the field in about 1933. From 1968 to 1982 she was on the committee of the Essex Union Hunt, becoming the only female Master of the Fox Hounds (between 1968 and 1970) in the hunt's entire two hundred and thirty six year history before its amalgamation with the Farmers in 1988. She had been a fearless rider, and tough. In her seventies she fell into a ditch breaking her collar bone. She re-mounted and completed the hunt before taking herself to hospital.She only stopped hunting in her early eighties having taken yet another fall and broken more bones.