Hugh van Cutsem

Hugh Bernard Edward van Cutsem (21 July 1941 – 2 September 2013) was an English banker, businessman, landowner and horse-breeder. Early life Hugh Bernard Edward van Cutsem was born on 21 July 1941. His father Bernard van Cutsem (1916–1975) was a millionaire horse-trainer and -breeder. His mother was Mary Compton, a descendant of the chiefly line of Clan Farquharson. The van Cutsems were Catholics of Belgian origin who had moved to England in the nineteenth century. He was educated at Sunningdale School and Ampleforth College, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, and graduated from the University of Cambridge. He then served as an officer in the Life Guards. Business career Van Cutsem worked as an investment banker at Hambros Bank. Later he began his own company and purchased further companies, including a data storage company. Land ownership Van Cutsem inherited his father's stud Northmore Farm in Exning near Newmarket, Suffolk, in 1976. He also owned a 4,000-acre estate in Norfolk, best known for its private wild game shoots. In 2001, the estate had thirty-five pairs of stone-curlews, a very rare bird. In addition he owned a hunting lodge and grouse moor managed for shooting interest on the North Yorkshire-Cumbria border. In the 1990s, he sold his father's farm in Exning and purchased the Hilborough estate in Norfolk, whence he transferred his horse-breeding operations. In 1994, he won a Country Landowners' Association award for his restoration of an old barn on the Hilborough estate; the Prince of Wales (later Charles III) presented the award.