Hove in the Past: Baron de Crevoisier de Vomécourt

David Sharp 2021

Jean François Constantin Maxime de Crevoisier, Baron de Vomécourt (born 1863) of the Château de Chassey les Montbozon, France, lived at number 33 Cromwell Road, Hove from 1908 until 1914. The 1911 census shows he shared the house with his French born family, his wife Adrienne Marie Louise (born 1870), daughter Paule-Jacqueline (age 13), and two sons, Philippe-Albert (age 7) and Edouard Pierre-Fournier (age 5). Their eldest son Jean-Francois Constantin (age 12) and daughter Anne-Francoise (age 11) were both away from home on the census day. The Baron’s household also included Mary McKenzie a cook, Beatrice Montague a domestic servant and a German nursery governess Berta Robertz.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Two notices in the Brighton Herald for 18 November 1911 and 2 December 1911 of the three lectures that Baron de Vomécourt would give at Hove Town Hall

The Baron and Baroness were very much involved in society events in Brighton and Hove, attending garden parties, mayoral events and concerts.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Brighton Herald 1 April 1913
Baron de Vomécourt was amongst the high profile guests at the
Fete Francaise in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton.

Baron de Vomécourt left his family in Hove and returned to France before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He enlisted in the French 6th Regiment of Artillery with the rank of a Lieutenant, sadly he was killed in action on 20 December 1914 at Ypres, aged 51.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Brighton Herald 9 January 1915, the address given in the above report is incorrect, Baron de Vomécourt actually lived at 33 Cromwell Road for six years.

Although Baron de Vomécourt was a foreign national he is remembered in Hove because of his Hove residency. His name is inscribed on the First World War Memorial in the foyer of Hove Library along with local British servicemen who had fallen in the Great War of 1914-1918. The Baron name is also listed in H. M. Walbrook’s Hove and the Great War (1920).

copyright © D. Sharp
Jean François Constantin Maxime de Crevoisier, Baron de Vomécourt's
name is commemorated on the First World War Memorial
in the foyer of Hove Library

copyright © O. Brogi
The War Memorial at Chassey Les Montbozen (A Ses Enfants Morts Pour La France)
Under 1914 Baron Jean François de Vomécourt who was killed at Ypres is named, his son Jean, who was was executed at Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Concentration Camp in Germany is listed by 1945 on the grey stone.

After her husband's return to France to join the French Army the Baroness moved from 33 Cromwell Road in the autumn of 1914 to Lorraine, 76 The Drive, Hove,
(N.B. 76 The Drive was adjoined with 20 Cromwell Road, a substantial corner property on The Drive/Cromwell Road junction).

The Baroness organised numerous fund raising events for the French Red Cross in which she served as the President of the Brighton & Hove Branch.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Two articles from the Brighton Herald - an appeal by Baroness de Vomécourt 13 March 1915, and
news of a French Fete to be held in the Baroness's garden on 13 July 1915

In June 1916 Baroness de Vomécourt applied to the Home Office for a Certificate of Naturalisation for herself and her three sons but did not want her two daughters included on the application form for naturalisation. At the time of her application her eldest son, Jean-Francois, had applied to join the Royal Flying Corps (Lt. Jean-Francois de Vomécourt qualified as a pilot in September 1917).

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Baroness de Vomécourt organised this event at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and ran the 'souvenirs of the trenches & Parisian jewellery stall' (Brighton Herald 15 July 1916)

The Home Office asked for a Detective Sargeant at Hove Police Station to investigate the Baroness’s suitability for British Naturalisation, on which he reported back as excellent in all respects. The main problem with the Baroness’s application as the Home Office saw it was her French aristocratic title. There was considerable correspondence between the Home Office and the College of Arms over the legality of the use of her title in the United Kingdom. On the 4 May 1917 a compromise was arrived at, in effect that the application would be granted if the Baroness dropped her French title and called herself:- ‘Madam de Vomécourt - commonly called Baroness de Vomécourt’.

The Home Office informed Madam de Vomécourt, if she used the title of ‘Baroness de Vomécourt’ as her proper name, her Certificate of Naturalisation would be revoked.

This whole episode showed how petty the Home Office was in granting this Certificate of British Naturalisation to the Baroness, who had lost her husband fighting for an allied country. She was a single mother of five and a pillar of local society and at a time when the United Kingdom was in the midst of a disastrous World War with thousands dying in the trenches. It seems the local people of Hove and local newspapers paid no heed to the Home Office diktats and continued to call Madam de Vomécourt by her Baroness title throughout her stay in Hove.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Baroness de Vomécourt organised this event at Hove Town Hall,
the footnote of this poster states:- Offerings of Money and Gifts
for stalls will be gratefully received by Mme. La Baronne de Vomécourt,
Local President, 76 The Drive, Hove, to whom all communications
regarding the French Fair should be addressed.

In early 1918 the Baroness moved from 76 The Drive to 2 Cromwell Road.

copyright © D. Sharp
Baroness de Vomécourt lived at 2 Cromwell Road
from early 1918 until the Armistice when she and
her children returned to France

Following the Armistice in 1918 the Baroness de Vomécourt and her five children returned to France where her children continued their education. The Baroness died on 30 August 1920 age 50. The UK Probate granted on 22 April 1921 states, ‘The Baroness was late of Château de Chassey les Montbozon par Cognieres, Haute Saone, France and 2 Cromwell Road, Hove in the County of Sussex’ and her next of kin were listed as Jean-Francois de Crevoisier de Vomécourt and Paule Jacqueline de Crevoisier de Vomécourt.

The de Vomécourt Brothers

The Baroness’ three sons were Special Operations Executive (SOE) secret agents and all heroes of the French Resistance during the Second World War.
Edouard-Pierre recruited his brothers to work in the Resistance and the three met at Philippe’s estate near Limoges and divided up the resistance zones in France, which they would set up themselves. Jean chose to work in eastern France, based at his home in Pontarlier, Philippe chose Limoges, where he had an estate as his base and Edouard-Pierre would work in Paris and the north of France. All three brothers would be eventually betrayed and spend time in German prisons.

Jean-Francois de Crevoisier, Baron de Vomécourt (1899-1945) volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and was shot down in 1917 and seriously injured, spending 9 months in hospital. After the First World War he returned to France to live in Pontarlier and served as the Mayor of Bonnal, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region in eastern France. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Jean-Francois had hoped to return to England to take up an army commission, but with the German invasion he was forced to stay in France. In 1941 his brother Pierre parachuted into France in order to meet Jean in Paris, with the news that their brother Philippe had already agreed to work for the French Resistance in Vichy France . Jean immediately agreed to work too, and took charge of the Franche-Comté region. Jean set up and organised Resistance groups which undertook the sabotage of sensitive infrastructure in the region. In July 1942 he was arrested and eventually imprisoned in Fresnes Prison, Paris. In February 1945 he was executed at Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Concentration Camp in Germany.

Philippe-Albert de Crevoisier de Vomécourt (1902–1964) was a secret agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He worked with the French Resistance using the code names of Gauthier and Antoine. He set up the Ventriloquist espionage network, which operated from May 1941 until the liberation of France in September 1944.

In November 1942 Vomécourt was arrested by French police near Limoges. The police told him they had arrested him to save him from the Gestapo and they registered him as Philippe de Crevoisier to conceal his identity. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

On 3 January 1944 Vomécourt escaped from Eysses Prison in Villeneuve-sur-Lot and managed to cross the Pyrenees into neutral Spain, arriving in England on 8 March.

In October 1944 Vomécourt returned to his home in Limoges but soon left to take up an administration post with the United Nations to help the millions of displaced European war refugees.

Edouard Pierre-Fournier de Crevoisier de Vomécourt (1906-1986). At the beginning of World War II in 1939, Vomécourt joined the French army and became a liaison officer and interpreter with the Scottish Rifles. He was evacuated with British forces from Dunkirk in June 1940. His family remained in France, living in Paris. While in England he was recruited into the French section of Special Operations Executive, and went under the codenames Lucas and Sylvain.

Vomécourt founded and headed SOE’s first Resistance network (Autogiro) in occupied France which operated in and around Paris from May 1941 to April 1942. He was captured by the Germans in April 1942. After nearly a year of mostly solitary confinement in Fresnes Prison, Paris, he spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Nazi Germany in Colditz Castle. He was freed by the allied armies in April 1945.

M. R. D. Foot (official SOE historian) wrote “Vomécourt was SOE’s first important agent in France. His early role was of essential importance in establishing the framework for British assistance to French groups resisting the German occupation”.

Hove Town Hall's 'French Connection' in the Second World War

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
The Supreme War Council leaving the Norton Road exit of Hove Town Hall. Amongst the delegates visible are Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Lord Halifax, Admiral Francois Darlan and General Maurice Gamelin.

On 22 September 1939 the Supreme War Council met in a committee room adjoining the Council Chamber. The British representatives were Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and the Minister for Co-ordination and Defence Lord Chatfield. The French representatives had flown into Shoreham Airport especially for the meeting and were the Premier M. Daladier, the Minister of Armaments M. Dautry, the Commander-in-Chief of the French Armed Forces General Gamelin, and the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Darlan. Later they adjourned for lunch at the Prince’s Hotel on the south-east corner of Grand Avenue.

Sources

Brighton Graphic

Brighton Herald

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944 (1984)

Kelly's Street Directories

Monsieur Olivier Brogi

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Royal Styles and Titles (UK National Archives)

UK Census 1911

12 June 2021

Baron de Crevoisier de Vomécourt