Lawrence Woodbine Cloete

LW was a proud man from two well connected Victorian Cape families The van der Bijl' s and the Cloetes His Great grandfather was Hendrik Cloete who had bought and rebuilt Constantia LW had married the granddaughter of Edward Fairley and thus into the family of the oldest banker in Glasgow and he had done a stint as Consul in Persia .. Operating as Stock broker in London ; an unfortunate Fraud occurred in his brokerage company. In the Court transcript of 1892 at the Old Bailey it became clear at the last minute after sentencing that he had NOT been directly aware of the Fraud . The Judge however never changed his sentence of 6 months hard Labour . BUT After his employee McPherson who was Employed by Cloete as a Clerk in his brokerage, was found Not Guilty , McP, overcome with Victorian guilt and remorse changed his plea to Guilty . The Judge Changed the Sentence of Mc Pherson to 18 months Hard Labour

The anguish and embarrassment of the event, the loss of his honour within the Victorian Society

caused LW Cloete AND his eldest 3 Sons ; all the South African born sons 

Lionel Eric  and Ronald to change their surnames to GRAHAM

Lawrence Woodbine Cloete was jailed for fraud, but after his release he lived out the last trimester of his days with his spouse Edith in France

Their illustrious Author Son STUART CLOETE was born ESF Graham in France in 1897 and only changed his surname back to CLOETE when his paternal uncle advised him of the circumstances of the changed Family name

There was no issue from any of these four grandsons of Sir Hendrik Cloete ( aka HENRY) and Helen [Graham] Cloete .. Judge not Lest ye be Judged

2018 RDLC GSC

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