John Talbot Clifton (1 December 1868 – 23 March 1928), known as Talbot Clifton, was an English landowner and traveller. He was born the son of Thomas Henry Clifton of

Lytham Hall Lytham Hall is an 18th-century Georgian country house in Lytham, Lancashire, from the centre of the town, in of wooded parkland. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, the only one ...

, Lancashire and his wife Madeline Agnew and was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He succeeded his grandfather, John Talbot Clifton (1819–1882), who had been MP for Lancashire and

High Sheriff of Lancashire The High Sheriff of Lancashire is an ancient officer, now largely ceremonial, granted to Lancashire, a county in North West England. High Shrievalties are the oldest secular titles under the Crown, in England and Wales. The High Sheriff of Lanc ...

for 1853, as owner of the Lytham estate at the age of 14. He became a compulsive traveller who explored Canada, Siberia, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Africa and South America, and was known for shooting wild animals and eating them. Some of the animals he shot were species new to science and were named after him, such as a type of wild Siberian sheep (Clifton's bighorn) and a Canadian marmot. He once dined on mammoth recovered frozen from the Arctic permafrost. He married Violet Mary, the daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and granddaughter of the

William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans (18 December 1766 – 17 July 1825) was an English aristocrat. Early life and career William was born on 18 December 1766. He was the second son of Lady Catharine Ponsonby and Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke ...

on 1 February 1907 at

Brompton Oratory Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...

. They had met in Peru, where she was also travelling. They lived at Lytham Hall and had two sons and three daughters. Talbot served as a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire. After the First World War, during which Talbot had volunteered as a dispatch driver, the couple bought Kylemore House in

Connemara Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. There he shot and injured a member of the

IRA Ira or IRA may refer to: *Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name *Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name *Iran, UNDP code IRA Law *Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...

in an argument over the requisition of his car. In 1922 they bought and moved to live at Kildalton Castle on the Scottish island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides where his passion for shooting wildlife continued unabated. After several more foreign expeditions he set off on a final journey to

Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou; Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...

with his wife, but fell ill en route. They turned back in

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...

but in 1928 he died in the Canary Islands on the way home. Violet had his body embalmed and took it back to Scotland for burial at Cnoc Rhaonastil. She later wrote a biography of her husband, published under the title The ''Book of Talbot'', which won the 1933

James Tait Black Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

References

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clifton, John Talbot 1868 births 1928 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge English landowners