George Sassoon

British scientist (1936-2006)

George Thornycroft Sassoon (30 October 1936 – 8 March 2006) was a British scientist, electronic engineer, linguist, translator and author.

## Early life

[edit]

Sassoon was the only child of the poet Siegfried Sassoon and his wife Hester Gatty, who were living mainly at Heytesbury House in Wiltshire, but was born in Westminster, where his parents had rented a house to be close to specialist help.[1] He was christened at St Martin-in-the-Fields by Dick Sheppard. His middle name was in honour of the family of his grandmother, Theresa Thornycroft.[2]

Siegfried Sassoon wrote playfully to Max Beerbohm in November 1936: "Will he, I wonder, become Prime Minister, Poet Laureate, Archbishop of Canterbury, or merely Editor of The Times Literary Supplement? Or Master of the Quorn? Or merely Squire of Heytesbury?"[3]

In 1947, Sassoon's parents separated, and he thereafter spent much of his childhood with his mother on the Scottish island of Mull. He was educated at Greenways Preparatory School at Ashton Gifford House, near Codford in Wiltshire, then at Oundle School and King's College, Cambridge.

## Career

[edit]

Sassoon investigated extraterrestrial phenomena and helped his mother run a sheep farm on Mull. Between 1978 and 1980, he published three books, two of which were about his theories on extraterrestrial visitations, and also spoke at conferences on alien phenomena.

## Personal life

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After his father died in 1967, Sassoon inherited and occupied his father's large country house, Heytesbury House at Heytesbury, Wiltshire. He found it much neglected and worked to restore it, and also battled unsuccessfully to stop a planned A36 bypass from going through the park of the house; in the process, he sold many of his father's papers to raise additional funds. The southern part of the park was subject to a compulsory purchase order in 1985[4] to allow construction of the bypass, separating the house from its cricket field and requiring a new entrance to be made from the west. He sold the house in 1996 after a serious fire[5] and moved to a smaller property in the nearby village of Sutton Veny, but spent part of the year on Mull, where he had inherited his mother's property Ben Buie on her death in 1973.

Sassoon married four times: Stephanie Munro, at Inverness in 1955 (dissolved 1961); Marguerite Dicks in 1961 (dissolved 1974); Susan Christian-Howard in 1975 (dissolved 1982); and lastly, Alison Pulvertaft in 1994.[6]

Sassoon's daughter by his first marriage, Kendall Sassoon, was born in 1961 shortly after her parents separated.[7] She is the Patron-in-Chief of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship.[8]

Sassoon's daughter and son by his third marriage, Isobel (born 1976) and Thomas (born 1978), were both killed in a road accident in Mendip, Somerset, in 1996, on the way home to Frome from a music festival. The car in which they were passengers crashed head on into a van, and six people died.[9]

Sassoon was something of a bon-vivant, well known among other things for his playing of the piano-accordion. Among his other interests were cricket, the Antipodes, and amateur radio, where his call-sign was GM3JZK.

## Death

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Sassoon died aged 69 of cancer in Wiltshire[10] in 2006. His body was buried in the Balure Cemetery on the Isle of Mull in Scotland's Inner Hebrides. His headstone carries the inscription "Polymath, GM3JZK".[citation needed]

## Selected publications

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* "The Asimov Effect" in Science Fiction Analog, November 1976
* The Manna-Machine (1978)
* The Kabbalah Decoded (1978)
* The Radio Hacker's Codebook, Duckworth, London. ISBN 0-7156-2068-1 (1986)

## References

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1. ^ Wilson, Jean Moorcroft (2003). Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches: a Biography (1918–1967). Psychology Press. p. 255\. ISBN 978-0-415-96713-6.
2. ^ Wilson 2003, p. 298.
3. ^ Ian Sansom, The Truth About Babies: From A-Z (2003) p. 6 at books.google.com
4. ^ "No. 50104". The London Gazette. 26 April 1985. pp. 5854–5855.
5. ^ "Heytesbury House". Sabre Developments. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
6. ^ Hoare, Philip (19 April 2006). "Obituary: George Sassoon". The Independent. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
7. ^ Irene McCready, "An Interview with Stephanie Redmile-Carter", Siegfried's Journal, no 22 (Summer 2012), pp6-10
8. ^ "Siegried Sassoon Fellowship". Retrieved 6 October 2022.
9. ^ Gary Anthony, "Grandchildren of Sassoon died on brink of careers", The Times, 3 September 1996
10. ^ "Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006". Archived from the original on 20 February 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2009.

## External links

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* Obituary at The Daily Telegraph
* Obituary at The Independent

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* United States
* Netherlands
* Poland
* Israel

Other|

* SNAC
* Yale LUX

* v
* t
* e

Sassoon family tree

This section includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this section by introducing more precise citations. (September 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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| | | | | | | | | | | | | Flora (Fahra) Reuben
(1837-1919)

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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Alfred Ezra Sassoon
1861-1895|
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Siegfried Sassoon
(1886-1967)|
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Thornycroft family| | Theresa Thornycroft
(1853-1947)| | | | | | | George Thornycroft Sassoon
(1936-2006)
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hester Gatty
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| | | | | Freddy Faraj Hayim| | | | | | | | | | | Joseph Sassoon Sassoon
(1855-1918)| | | | | | Marion Schiff

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| | | | | | | | | | Flora (Farha) Hayim [second wife]| | | Sassoon David Sassoon
(1832-1867)| | | | | | | Major Arthur Meyer Sassoon
(1889- )| | | | | | | James Sassoon, Baron Sassoon
(1955- )
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Baroness Louise de Gunzburg
(1862-1921)| | | | | | | Hugh Meyer Sassoon
(1929- )
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Five more sons and three more daughters*| | | | | | Doris Meyer
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Heskel Elkebir Gubbay
(1740-1816)| | | | Rifka Elkebir Gubbay| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Solomon David Sassoon (1841-1894)
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Ades Elkebir Gubbay| | | | Shoua Heskel Elkebir| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | David Solomon Sassoon
(1880-1942)| | Rabbi Solomon David Sassoon
(1915-1985)| | Rabbi Isaac S.D. Sassoon
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ezekiel Abraham (Heskel Shoua Heskel Elkebir)
(1824-1896)| | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Flora (Farha) Abraham
(1859-1936)
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| | | | | Mazaltov (Muzli Toba) Somekh| | | | | | | | | | | | Aziza Sassoon
(1839-1897)

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| | | | | Saleh Sassoon
(1750-1830)| | David Sassoon
(1792-1864)| | | | | | | Joseph Sassoon

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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hannah Moses| |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, 1st Baronet
(1817-1896)| | | Sir Edward Albert Sassoon, 2nd Baronet
(1856-1912)| | | Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, 3rd Baronet
(1888-1939)
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Rothschild family| | Aline Caroline Rothschild| | | Sybil Rachel Betty Cecile Sassoon
(1894-1989)

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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | David Sassoon|
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jacob Elias Sassoon, 1st Baronet
(1843-1916)
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| | | | | | | | | Hannah Joseph [first wife]| | | Elias David Sassoon
(1820-1880)| |

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Edward Elias Sassoon, 2nd Baronet
(1853-1924)| | Victor Sassoon, 3rd Baronet
(1881-1961)

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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Charles Sassoon
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Meyer Sassoon
(1855-1924)
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | David Sassoon
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cesar Sassoon [i]

Notes:

1. ^ For clarity, several names were omitted here. They are:

Reuben Sassoon (1835-1905); Arthur Sassoon (1840-1912); Aaron Sassoon (1841-1907); Kate Sassoon (1844-1917); Rebecca Sassoon (1847-1918); Simha Sassoon (1850-1857); Frederick Sassoon (1853-1917); and Mozelle Sassoon (1855-1952)

## References

* Jacobs, Joseph; Lipkind, Goodman; Hyams, J. (1906). "Sassoon". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
* "Elkebir Family Tree" (PDF). The Scribe: The Journal of Babylonian Jewry (74). London: The Exilarch's Foundation: 78. Autumn 2001. ISSN 1474-0230. Retrieved 12 September 2015.

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