Hugh Massingberd

Hugh John Massingberd (30 December 1946 – 25 December 2007), originally Hugh John Montgomery and known from 1963 to 1992 as Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, was an English journalist and genealogist. He was chief editor of Burke's Peerage/Burke's Landed Gentry from 1971 to 1983. Sometimes called the father of the modern obituary, Massingberd was most revered for his work as obituaries editor for The Daily Telegraph of London from 1986 to 1994, during which time he drastically altered the style of the modern British obituary from a dry recital of biographical data to an often sly, witty, yet deadpan narrative on the deceased person's life. Biography Massingberd began life as Hugh John Montgomery at Cookham Dean, Berkshire, in 1946. His father, John Michael Montgomery, was a member of the Colonial Service. His mother, Marsali (née Seal), was a schoolmistress who married John Montgomery after her first husband, Roger de Winton Kelsall Winlaw, died in 1942 on active service in the Royal Air Force. Hugh was the first child of her marriage to John Montgomery. Through his father, Hugh Massingberd was a great-grandson of women's-rights pioneer Emily Langton Massingberd. He was a great-great-grandson of Charlotte Langton (born Wedgwood) who was herself a granddaughter of the potter and philanthropist Josiah Wedgwood and a sister of Emma Wedgwood, wife of Charles Darwin.