Captain Arthur Granville Soames (12 October 1886 – 6 July 1962) was a British Army officer in the Coldstream Guards and landowner.
He was born on 12 October 1886 in Wingerworth, Derbyshire, England.[1] He was the only son of Harold Soames (1855-1918), brewer, later of Gray Rigg, Lilliput, Dorset.
Soames's mother was Katherine Mary (1851-1932), a daughter of George Hill.[2]
Soames was the brother of Olave St. Clair Baden-Powell (1889–1977), World Chief Guide.
On Christmas night 1918, his father, Harold Soames, killed himself by walking into the sea at Lilliput, Poole. His sister Auriol Edith Davidson also died by suicide, throwing herself under a train at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, on 5 April 1919; she was survived by her three small daughters, aged five, three, and three months.
Soames was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards on 16 August 1905, promoted to lieutenant on 21 September 1907,[3] and served with the regiment during the First World War.[4]
In November 1926, Soames was nominated as Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and was then living at Ashwell Manor, Tylers Green, Buckinghamshire. He was nominated again the following year.
On 20 December 1913 at the Guards' Chapel, Wellington Barracks, Soames married Hope Mary Woodbine Parish (b. 2 Aug 1893 in Westminster), daughter of businessman Charles Woodbine Parish, of Ennismore Gardens, Kensington. Together, they had two daughters and a son:
They divorced in 1934. Arthur Soames remarried twice:
In 1934, Soames inherited the mansion and estate of Sheffield Park, Sussex, from his father's brother, Arthur Gilstrap Soames, who had purchased it in 1909.[8] Soames sold the estate in 1953.[9] He also disposed of part of his library.[10]
He died in a London hospital on 6 July 1962 aged 75.[11]