Miss Catherine and Master Robert Gerard
(1855-1924 and 1857-1918)
14 June 1862
Volume 7, page 127, sitting number 8752.
Catherine Frances Garard and Robert Joseph Gerard were two of the children of Robert Tolver Gerard (1808-1887), who on 1 February 1854 succeeded as the 13th Baronet Gerard of Bryn. He was raised to the peearage as 1st Baron Gerard of Bryn on 18 January 1876.
Catherine (sometimes Katherine) Frances Gerard was born in 1855, the third child and second daughter of Robert Tolver Gerard and his wife Harriet née Clifton. The couple's next child was Robert Joseph Gerard, born on 8 August 1857.
The family appear on the 1861 census living at Garswood Hall in Lancashire. Robert Tolver Gerard described himself as a 'Knight & Baronet & Deputy Lieutenant / J.P. [and] Lt. Col. Lancs. Hussars.' Also present on the night of the census were a governess and twenty-six servants, including a butler, an under-butler, a footman, a valet, a groom and two postilions.
On 10 August 1880 Catherine Frances Gerard married the British diplomat Martin Le Marchant Hadsley Gosselin, later the United Kingdom's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Lisbon. Their marriage produced one son, killed in action in 1915, and three daughters. As the result of a car accident, Sir Martin Gosselin died in Lisbon on 26 February 1905. Lady Gosselin died on 19 April 1924 at 13 Ovington Square, Brompton. She left an estate valued at £41,112.
On 19 April 1888 the Honourable Robert Joseph Gerard married Eleanor Sarah Bankes, daughter of William John Bankes. He gained the rank of Captain in the 3rd Battalion, King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. In 1896 his name was legally changed by Royal Licence to Robert Joseph Gerard-Dicconson. He died, aged 61, on 16 September 1918, leaving an estate valued at £31,129.
According to a brief announcement in The Scotsman (17 September 1918), 'The death has taken place at his residence, Wrightington Hall, Lancashire, of the Hon. Robert Gerard-Dicconson, surviving son of the first Lord Gerard. He was 61 years of age, and assumed the name of Dicconson by licence in 1896. He was a well-known huntsman.'