Bradford People: Clarence Goff

Posted on Aug 12, 2012 in People, Social History |

Thomas Clarence Edward Goff (1867-1949) was the great-grandson of King William IV. He served in the army, becoming Captain in the 4th Battalion, Royal Scots Regiment. He was a London County Councillor, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of Yorkshire, with his seat at Carrowroe Park, Co. Roscommon in Ireland. He married Lady Cecilie Heathcote Drummond Willoughby (1874-1960), daughter of the Earl of Ancaster in 1896 and they had a daughter Elizabeth Moyra (1897-1990) and a son, Thomas Robert Charles OBE (1898-1975) .

The connection with the Bradford district is that in 1921 he purchased the early Georgian house in Holt called The Courts. He and his wife built on earlier work there by Sir George Hastings by developing the gardens and donating the whole property to the National Trust in 1943. The Goffs were visited at Holt by Queen Mary and the cup and saucer that the Queen used is now in Bradford on Avon Museum. In World War II he commanded the Holt & Staverton Local Defence Volunteers (“Home Guard”) – the portrait comes from a group photograph taken in The Courts garden. Their daughter Moyra continued to live in the house until her death in 1990 and is remembered for still driving her powerful AC Cobra sports car in her eighties.

> Portrait of Moyra Goff, age 5 in 1902