Sir George Broke-Middleton
(1812-1887)
7 June 1861
Volume 4, page 37, sitting 4218.
Born on 26 April 1812, George Nathaniel Broke was the second son of Admiral Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke, 1st Bt. and Louisa née Middleton. His father was created a baronet in recognition of his victory over the United States frigate Chesapeake in 1813.
On 27 August 1853 he married Albinia Maria, second daughter of Thomas Evans of Lyminster, Sussex. Their marriage produced no children.
He gained the title of 3rd Baronet Broke in 1855 on the death of his older brother.
He died, aged 74, on 14 January 1887 at Shrubland Park in Suffolk, leaving an estate valued at £20,243.
An obituary appeared in the Morning Post (15 January 1887). ‘We have to record the death of Admiral Sir George N. Broke-Middleton, Bart., C.B., which happened at Shrubland Park, Needham, Suffolk, yesterday morning. He was born in 1812, and entered the navy in 1825. He was midshipman in the Glasgow at Navarino, and was afterwards employed off the coast of Syria in 1840. As captain of the Gladiator he joined the fleet in the Baltic, under Sir Charles Napier, and assisted at the attack on Bomarsund, and he later joined the fleet in the Black Sea, receiving for his services there the Crimean and Turkish medals and other decorations, and in 1855 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. He became admiral (on reserved half pay) in January, 1877. He succeeded as third baronet on the death of brother, Captain Sir Philip Broke, who died unmarried in 1855. He married in 1853 the second daughter of Mr Thomas Evans, of Lyminster, Sussex. The late Sir George, pursuant to the will of his maternal grandfather, Sir William Fowle Middleton, first baronet, of Shrubland Hall, Suffolk (whose baronetcy became extinct at the death of his son, Sir William Fowle Middleton, in 1860), assumed by royal license in 1860 the surname of Middleton after that of Broke, and the arms of Middleton quarterly in the first quarter with those of Broke. The baronetcy by the demise of Sir George has become extinct.’
According to a far longer obituary in the Evening Star (15 January 1887): ‘Sir George had not long been married when the Broke Hall estate reverted to him, and he at once entered heartily into the social duties and pastimes pertaining to the life of a country squire. Ever a great lover of sport and passionately fond of being afloat […], with the beautiful river Orwell lapping the banks of his fine estate, what wonder that he should delight in yachting? […] Ever willing to afford to visitors an opportunity of inspecting his beautiful gardens and grounds at Shrubland, they have year after year been opened on public holidays for benevolent and charitable objects, and gatherings of the volunteer force have more than once been held there with the cordial goodwill of the owner towards this patriotic movement. Ipswich School held a high place in his regard, and only a short time since he presented it with a swimming bath.’