Peter Evans-Freke, 11th Baron Carbery

Peter Ralfe Harrington Evans-Freke, 11th Baron Carbery (20 March 1920 – 28 July 2012) was the 11th Baron Carbery from 1970 until his death at the age of 92 in 2012.^[1]

Evans-Freke was educated at Downside, a Benedictine boarding school in Somerset. He then joined the Royal Engineers and during the Second World War saw active service behind enemy lines in Burma, where he took part in raids to destroy Japanese infrastructure. He then served in British India and ended his military service with the rank of Captain.

Following the war, Evans-Freke went into business, becoming a director of an equine and livestock insurance company. He married firstly Joyzelle, an Australian, and they had three sons, Michael, John, and Stephen, and two daughters, Maura and Angela. In a marriage which lasted more than sixty years, the couple were frequent visitors to Lourdes.

On 25 December 1970 Evans-Freke succeeded an uncle in the family peerage and baronetcy.

He had a deep interest in agriculture. A Traditionalist Catholic, his deep devotion to the Roman Catholic Church was matched by a love of music and poetry, and he was, as his son John described him in the eulogy, an “incurable romantic”. He became a Military Knight of Malta, joining the most important of the military orders of the Roman Catholic Church.

Following his wife's death in 2006, Carberry married again, remaining with his second wife, Elisabeth, until his death in July 2012.

Carbery had his last wish fulfilled when he was entombed in the ancient family vault, the crypt of the ruined chapel of Castle Freke, a ruin overlooking the Atlantic in the west of County Cork, following a Tridentine Mass at the church in Rathbarry. Reviving a family tradition, Carberry's remains were carried up the wooded avenue at Freke in a 19th-century horse-drawn hearse, to be entombed next to those of his first wife, who was buried in the same place in 2006. That was the first time the vault at Castle Freke had been opened since 1852. The immediacy of his religious belief was reflected in the simple rosary placed on his coffin for the Mass.

Carberry was outlived by his second wife, Elisabeth, Lady Carbery, and his five children, and was succeeded by his son Michael Evans-Freke, 12th Baron Carbery.

References