Most of the parish of Cameley comprises the northeast Somerset village of Temple Cloud on the busy A37. Cameley itself is just a tiny hamlet to the west of the village. In my photo of the church (shown in the first comment) the tower is shrouded in scaffolding, but there's a much better photo by SC Smith here.

The memorial is by Reeves of Bath. The inscription reads as follows: "Sacred to the memory of the Rev. John Rees-Mogg, clerk, B.A. of Cholwell House in this parish, Prebendary of Tytherington in the Collegiate Church of Heytesbury who died on the 20th day of October, 1833, aged 65. Also of his widow, Mary Rees-Mogg, of the same place, who departed this life on the 20th day of March, 1846, aged 71 years."

John was also a one-time Chaplain to the Duke of Cumberland. He was baptised with the surname Rees and, when he married Mary Wooldridge in 1797, he was still plain John Rees. But, in 1805, he added the Mogg by Royal Licence "in pursuance of the will of the maternal grandfather of his wife, Mary, only child and heir of William Wooldridge" .

Mary Rees (née Wooldridge) was born in 1875. Two years before she was born her father, William Wooldridge, had married Mary Mogg. On page cxvi of The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales by Sir Bernard Burke is written: "Mogg (Rees-Mogg, Cholwell House, Somerset. Rev. John Rees assumed by royal licence in 1805 the additional surname and arms of Mogg, in pursuance of the will of the maternal grandfather of his wife, Mary, only child and heir of William Wooldridge, by Mary, his wife, daughter of John Mogg, Esq, of Cholwell House, aforesaid). Arm, Crest, and Motto correctly given at page 692." It has been claimed that the Somerset Moggs "had been local businessmen and landowners since at least the 13th century". [the Memoirs of William Rees-Mogg, 2011, p17].

John and Mary's elder son was William Wooldridge Rees-Mogg (1815-1909). He became one of the two principal landowners in Camely. His son was Edmund Fletcher Rees-Mogg (1889-1962). He was a wealthy farmer who served in World War I as a lieutenant in the RASC and was the High Sheriff of Somerset in 1945.

Edmund's son, William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012), was born in a nursing home in Clifton, Bristol. Like one of his heroes, Winston Churchill, he had an American mother. He was educated at Clifton College, Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford. During that time he developed political ambitions and twice during the 1950s contested the safe Labour seat of Chester-le-Street, County Durham. But he was defeated on both occasions and instead became a journalist on the Financial Times. In 1960, he became city editor of the Sunday Times and when in 1967 Lord Thomson, already the proprietor of The Times, added the Sunday Times to his portfolio he made Rees-Mogg editor of his new acquisition. When Rupert Murdoch acquired the two papers in 1981, Rees-Mogg resigned as editor. Nevertheless, he continued writing for the paper occasionally until the early years of the 21st century. He was made a life peer as Baron Rees-Mogg in 1988. He died on 29 December 2012 after a brief illness. Read about his long life in his Guardian obituary or in his Memoirs published in 2011.

William Rees-Mogg's son Jacob Rees-Mogg (b 1969) is a Conservative politician. He's currently the MP for North East Somerset which includes Cameley, Pensford and Bishop Sutton.

Until the 1930s there were coalfields in NE Somerset. In 1835 William Rees-Mogg's grandfather William Wooldridge Rees-Mogg purchased the old Bishop Sutton field and, in 1853, he added the Old Pit at Pensford to a portfolio which, by then, may have been considerable.

Robert Cutts, July 2012, updated February 2013.

Posted: 6 June 2010.