Edward Fawcett

Edward (Ted) Charles Richard Fawcett O.B.E., (22 September 1920 – 19 October 2013) was a promoter of garden history, conservationist and head of public relations at The National Trust.

Early life Fawcett was born near Glasgow in 1920 and raised in Harrogate. His parents were Harold and Una Fawcett. He attended Northaw boarding school and at Uppingham School. He spent three months in Paris learning French before returning to Glasgow to work as an accountant with his mother's family's firm, McClelland Kerr. later commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant.

Wartime service

During World War II, Fawcett served in motor launches in Gibraltar and later moved to Escort destroyers as a Gunnery Control Officer. He took part in Operation Pedestal, a mission to deliver supplies to the besieged island of Malta, serving on HMS Bramham from the end of 1941, which towed the tanker into Malta. He spent one night in a boat saving survivors from the Santa Eliza from an oil-slicked sea. In 1943 he was Temporary Lieutenant on HMS Talybont. He served in the Atlantic, the Far East, in North Africa and in the D-Day landings. Conservationist He left the Navy in 1947 and worked for Shell, where he went to the London School of Economics to study personnel management, and then at Joseph Lucas, a producer of car electrics, and became its overseas director. He took a degree in art history and French at Birkbeck, University of London.

In collaboration with the architect Gordon Ballard he set up a residential course on the conservation of historic gardens at West Dean College, in West Sussex, which ran from 1978 to 1984. With the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) he later set up a postgraduate course in garden conservation; his wife Jane was working there on the AA Building Conservation course.

After his retirement he continued with the management of the Osterley Park and House, and, concerned about the neglect of Chiswick House Grounds, in 1984 he became the first chairman of Chiswick House Friends;

He served on committees of the International Council on Monuments and Sites.

Personal life and death

Fawcett married Jane Hughes (1921 – 2016)

Publications

Some Poems (1981), privately published by The Stellar Press, Hatfield More Poems (1996) The Promised Land (1997) Late Harvest (2008)