Robert Trewhella

Robert Trewhella (1830 – 6 February 1909) was a railway engineer.

Origins Robert Trewhella II was born in Cornwall, in the parish of Ludgvan (3 miles north-east of Penzance) and was christened there on 30 May 1830. He was a son of Robert Trewheela I (1792/6-1846) of Cockwells in the parish of Ludgvan, a miner and farmer, by his first wife Mary Repper (d.1831), whom he married in 1815 at Ludgvan. The historic estate of "Trewhella" (today "Trewhella Farm" ) is situated in the parish of St Hilary, 3 miles east of Ludgvan, in an area containing many former mines, most notably Wheal Fortune. A certain James Trewhella, in 1633 a churchwarden of Towednack, the parish on the east side of Ludgvan, is represented as one of two profile busts sculpted on surviving wooden bench ends in that church. It has been proposed that his son was Matthew Trewhella, a choirboy with a beautiful voice who in the legend of the Mermaid of Zennor, (recorded in 1873 by William Bottrell (1816-1881) in his Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall) 91-103 Via Garibaldi, on the south side of that street, west of the junction with Via Santa Chiara, Catania, a large 18th-century apartment block surrounding a central courtyard.

Builds Villa Sant'Andrea He built the Villa Sant'Andrea on the beach in the Bay of Mazzarò below Taormina, Sicily, as his summer house. In 1919 the villa was completed by his son Percy Trewhella, whose daughter Gwendoline Trewhella (born in nearby Catania) and her husband Major Ivor Manley transformed it in 1950 into the present well-known hotel. Ivor Manley was attached as an intelligence corps officer to the US 5th Army during the 1943 Allied invasion which recaptured Sicily and Italy from German occupation, and he personally recovered possession of Villa Sant'Andrea which had been used as an officer's mess Cornwall, also a railway engineer, married her sister Anna Maria Thrupp and died at Sorrento, Italy. 14 March 1865, educated at Clifton College in Bristol, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, who died at Rome on 8 March 1893, aged 28, where he was buried in the Protestant Cemetery. His obituary published by the Institution of Civil Engineers states as follows:

(Alfred) Percy Trewhella (24 April 1875 - 5 April 1959), born 24 April 1875 in Castellamare di Stabia, Naples, Italy, married Gertrude Deidamia Sarauw (11 July 1880 - 5 April 1959), born in Messina, Sicily, the daughter of Carl Christian 'Carlo' Sarauw. The journal of Mrs Gertrude Trewhella's internment in occupied France during WW II was published in 2014, edited by her grandson's wife Jane Manley. The couple died together in tragic circumstances at Taormina when Gertrude "stepped out of the way of a car in the road outside the villa gates and fell. As she did so, her husband Percy tried to catch hold of her and, tragically, the two of them fell to their deaths". By his wife he had a son and two daughters: Gerald Trewhella (1908-28 December 1908), born in Catania, died in infancy during the 1908 Messina earthquake, of the Welsh Guards and later of the British Intelligence Corps, in 1946 British Vice-Consul at Naples; ) until 1985 when the family, with four children, returned permanently to England. and of Mottistone Manor, Isle of Wight, Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight 1980-6, Chairman of the Ocean Steam Ship Company 1957-71, Chairman of Martins Bank 1962-4 and a director of Barclays Bank 1969-81. Beatrice Elford, daughter, mentioned in her father's will, dated 11 July 1908 at Palermo Adele Carnazzo, daughter, mentioned in her father's will.

Death and burial He died at 19 Viale Margherita, his mansion in Catania, Sicily, on 6 February 1909 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome.