Richard Hugh Royds Brocklebank was born in Liverpool on 3 Jan 1881, known as Hugh. He was the son of Thomas Brocklebank and Mary Petrena Royds of Wateringbury, Kent. He was educated at Eton and matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied from 1899 to 1901. He was commissioned into the 9th Lancers as a 2nd Lieutenant on 5 Jan 1901. He served in the Boer War and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 May 1904. In 1910 he was promoted to captain and married Charlotte Carissima Blood, daughter of General Sir Bindon Blood.
He served in World War One and reached the rank of major, detached from the 9th Lancers, taking part in campaigns in Egypt, Gallipoli, France, Belgium and Germany. He took over command of the regiment on 31st July 1918 having been with the Machine Gun Corps. He led the regiment towards Amiens for the second Allied counter-offensive in August, as a mounted regiment in support of tanks and infantry. Their last serious action of the war, in September 1918, was the attack on the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and St Quentin.
Hugh Brocklebank was an art collector, mostly Islamic ceramics; his collection was donated to Magdalen College after his death. He wrote a privately published commentary on his paintings called A Turn or Two I ll Walk to Still my Beating Mind (1955) He also wrote A Description of Anatolian Faience and My Collection, Magdalen College, Oxford.
Hugh and Charlotte, according to a census in 1911, lived at Broad Oak Lodge, Sturry, Canterbury, Kent. A later address was Alveston House, Stratford-on-Avon. He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant and JP. They had three children; a daughter and two sons. Ursula Mary Brocklebank, later Lady Rayleigh (1911-1982), Bindon Edmund Brocklebank (1914-1919) and John Ralph Aukland Brocklebank (1919-1943). Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hugh Royds Brocklebank died in Paddington on 8 May 1965, aged 84.
