Frank Langton

Born Francis Albert Romuald Langton on 7 February 1840 at Bath in Somerset, his parents were Michael Theobald Langton (1782-1844), and Mary Ryan of Waterford in Ireland.

He appears on the 1851 census, aged 11, a student at the Roman Catholic boarding school Downside, twelve miles from Bath. In 1869, in the London Borough of Kensington, he married Margaret Cecilia Tobin, who was born in or about 1845 in Montreal, Canada.

Francis Langton and his wife appear on the 1871 census, living at 5 Ovington Square, Kensington. He gave his profession as ‘Clerk - Post Office’.

An entry in The Catholic Who's Who Yearbook of 1910 gives a fuller picture of his life: ‘Frank Albert Romuald Langton was appointed Private Secretary to Mr Monsell (afterwards Lord Emly) in 1871, a post continued under Mr Playfair, Lord John Manners, Sir H. Fawcett, Mr Shaw-Lefevre, Lord Wolverton, Mr Raikes, Sir James Fergusson, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Marquis of Londonderry, successive Postmasters General.’ The entry goes on to say that he retired in 1903, and that he was on the councils of the Association for the Propagation of the Faith, Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Union, and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

At the time of the 1901 census he and his wife were living at 11 Egerton Place, near Kensington's Brompton Road. Also present on the night of the census were two sons, Henry and George, and a daughter-in-law. Mrs Langton had five live-in servants to help run her household, including a butler.

Francis Langton died, aged 77, on 1 September 1917, at Hove in Sussex. He left an estate valued at £8136.

Photographed by Victor Stanislas Bureau of Paris.