Contracted a "golden staphilococcus" infection after suffering from apendicitis while exploring for gold in the jungles of Colombia South America. Went to a hospital in the capital (Bogota) Appendix was perforated and gangrene had set in so a colonoscopy was performed later leading to the golden staff. infection which invaded all of his body and couldn't be controlled, and he later died
COLOMBIA.
LISTA DE GEOLOGOS MATRICULADOS ANTE EL C.P.G. – PERIODO: 1978 – 2007 (Mayo)
280 CHRISTIAN BRIDGER PLANT
Harold managed a farm in Uruguay, married , and also volunteered in the First World War and became the rear gunner in a two-seater fighter of the R.F.C. was shot down during action and miraculously survived as parachutes had not yet been invented. He was taken prisoner and released after the armistice. Back in Argentina he and his brogher-in-law G.H.Austin bought an Estancia in the Province of Cordoba called Las Cortaderas which is still in the family today.
Marjorie Sylvia Kent (my grandmother) had an affair with Harold Bridger (your grandfather) in approx. 1931, leading to the birth of my father. On his birth certificate he was named Cristobal Kent, but when my grandmother took him back to England (about 3 years later we think), she gave him the name Christopher Blake (she liked the poet, William Blake) and more or less officially "adopted" him, as far as we can work out. Apparently, she didn't tell him that she was his real mother until he was 21! He always knew her as "Auntie". At some point she told him that his father was a man named Bridger whom she'd met whilst working in Argentina, but that was all he knew really. She never married or had any other children.
Marjorie told my dad, and Geoff and Nancy confirmed this, that Harold and Phyllis (your grandparents) allegedly offered to officially adopt my dad themselves, and bring him up as 1 of the family, but that Marjorie didn't want to lose him. The family therefore arranged for her to move to a neighbouring farm to work as a housekeeper, after the baby was born. Apparently Nancy's mother and grandmother were midwives to her and she delivered the baby in their house. According to Geoffrey, afterwards Harold felt so guilty that he gave Marjorie 500 head of cattle to take with her and to help provide for their son.
There are two aspects about the life of Robert Bridger, George's eldest son, which will always remain a puzzle, what were his motives for taking two very important steps in his life, going to sea at the age of 15 and subsequently leaving it nearly eleven yrs. later when he seemed to be climbing the ladder of success. Perhaps the answer may be perfectly straightforward, youthful enthusiasm and maybe boredom. But if one examines the facts more closely, surely it would seem very unusual for the eldest son to leave the farm when his next two brothers were 12 & 10yrs old.Although the town of Winchester was within walking distance from Chilcombe House, there is no record of Robert going to school there. Very probably he was taught by a governess and later sent to a school in southampton where his great grandfather had once been mayor and no doubt still had relations there. This raises the possibility that he might have gone to some school connected with the Royal Navy or the merchant marine which would explain his decision to go to sea. On the other hand, being in Southampton and in close proximity to ships and seamen could have fired his imagination.
It is not certain wether Robert's father George died after Robert went to sea in 1855. It seems hardly likely he would have left the farm after his father's attack but it could be conjectured that his wife Hannah was a remarkable woman and played a large part in managing the farm.
Robert spent over ten yrs at sea. His first ship, the "George Marshall" he joined as midshipman on sept. 19th 1855. This fact alone would indicate that he had previously pent several yrs a a maritime academy. Three yrs later he transferred to the "Statesman", where he was promoted to "A.B." A yr later he joined the "Aliquis" as third mate. He left this ship on August 6th 1860, sat for an exam and 19days later was awarded his second mate's certificate. It is very likely that Robert Bridger started his lif at sea in paddle steamers with iron hulls and later transferred to screw-driven ships, which fact may have convinced him to leave the sea altogether. Recent investigations make him still at sea in 1866 when all trace of his movements dissapears, and it is not certain whether he acquired a first mate's ticket. One of our cousins rembers being told that he was a captain but over the yrs the rank may have been confused and that he was a first mate after all. A more complex problem deals with the yr he arrived in Uruguay. According to cousin Alices' memoires, he (?) came out to Uruguay with the Royal mail as purser as the doctor ordered sea airs. He spent his 21st birthday aboard. This would have made the yr 1861 and very unlikely for a sea man to require sea airs...However, had cousin Alice been referring to her own father Fred, his 21st. birthday at sea meant Jan. 1866, a much more likely proposition. But then again, if he was at sea at the end of 1865 and if he had been persuaded by his brother Robert to go or come to Uruguay, did that mean Robert was already there?
DEATH: Died during the first wold war of scarlet fever.
Percy Edwin Alan JOHNSON MARSHALL
He was born 20 January 1915, and studied with Charles Reilly and Patrick Abercrombie at the University of Liverpool. He worked enthusiastically with Donald Gibson on the replanning and reconstruction of Coventry until 1941, when war service with the Royal Engineers interrupted this part of his career. It did, however, lead to a post as governmental advisor on planning and reconstruction to the government of Burma.
Returning to post-war Britain, Percy Johnson-Marshall was employed at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, where he was involved in framing the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. He then moved to the London County Council as Senior Planner, responsible for London's Comprehensive Development Areas which included the showpiece Lansbury Estate, conceived as model housing for the Festival of Britain. Johnson-Marshall was also active in national and international architectural and planning organisations, ranging from RIBA and RTPI, to the MARS group and the International Centre for Regional Planning and Development, of which he was a founder member.
In 1959 Johnson-Marshall was appointed first as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture in the University of Edinburgh, and then as Professor of Urban Design and Regional Planning. In 1964 he set up Percy Johnson-Marshall and Associates, which produced everything from regional plans to detailed schemes for town centres across the world. In the 1960s, he was increasingly active in international planning, serving as a judge of many international competitions and as a member of the advisory committee for the redevelopment of Les Halles in Paris. He was vice-president of the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), the UN consultant on human settlements, and chairman of the Congress on Planning for Metropolitan Cities, held in Mexico City in 1968.
After his death in 1993, Percy Johnson-Marshall's huge collection was stored at various locations in Edinburgh. The material is now being brought together in Edinburgh University Library, alongside the architectural collections of W. H. Playfair, Sir Rowand Anderson, Sir Robert Lorimer, Patrick Geddes and Sir Robert Mathew. It includes books on city design, and planning, bound planning reports, bulletins, pamphlets, and conference reports, long runs of planning and architectural journals, archival photographs and colour slides, plans, maps and storyboards, covering the major projects on which he was engaged.
Duddingston House
Located in Milton Road West, in front of the village of Duddingston, is a superb classical villa built between 1763-8 at the cost of £30,000 by Sir William Chambers (1723 - 1796) and regarded as his finest work.The Duddingston Estate was sold in 1745 by Archibald Campbell, the 3rd Duke of Argyll (1682 - 1761), to James Hamilton, the bachelor 8th Earl of Abercorn, who improved the estate and commissioned Chambers to build the house. The fertility of the estate was due to Sir James Dick, a former Lord Provost of Edinburgh and owner of the neighbouring Prestonfield House, who had taken delivery of manure from the city's streets towards the end of the 17th Century The main house consists of two storeys in pale stone, with a five-window frontage and a quartet of Corinthian columns forming a pedimented portico. Inside there is fine plasterwork, a grand entrance hall and staircase and magnificent fireplaces.
The private apartments are contained in a separate block to the north of the main house, which itself is connected to a further range housing the stables. These blocks were converted to luxury town-houses in the early 1990s.
King Edward VII considered buying Duddingston as his private estate, but bought Sandringham in Norfolk instead. For many years a hotel, it now forms offices for architects Percy Johnson-Marshall and Partners. The surrounding parkland may have been laid out by Capability Brown and now forms Duddingston Golf Course and the grounds of Holy Rood School.