• Son of Alfred Charles Elliott (1870-1952) and Maud Beeching (d.1946)
• Known as 'Harry Elliott'
• Married firstly, in 1930, Bettine Rachel Parsons, and had two children with her.
• Married secondly, in 1945, Rosemary Isabella Stephanie Segrave, and had one child with her.
• Escaped from Colditz during World War II by faking a duodenal ulcer.
• Details from *Eliott 1974, p178, though this gives his name as Henry - an error?
• Died 1981, according to thepeerage.com.

Marriage Announcement

A newspaper clipping sent to me by Charles Baron announces his first wedding in 1930:

"MR. H. A. V. ELLIOTT AND MISS PARSONS

The marriage took place yesterday at St. Mark's, North Audley-street, of Mr. Harold Alfred Venn Elliott, The Queen's Royal Regiment, only son of Lieutenant-Colonel and Mrs. A. C. Elliott, of Wanborough House, Cranleigh, and Miss Bettine Rachel Parsons, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel and Mrs. Cecil Parsons, of Munstead Corner, Godalming. The Archdeacon of Surrey officiated, assisted by the Rev. F. Symes-Thompson (rector of Busbridge, Godalming) and the Rev. W. G Pennyman.

The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a gown of perle rosée satin, the back of the long skirt forming a train embroidered in a design of Madonna lilies in encrusted pearls and gold thread. Her pink-tinted tulle veil was held in place by a small coronet of tinted pearls, and she wore a square pearl and diamond brooch, and carried a sheaf of longiflorum lilies. Master Andrew Pain and Master Anthony Bagnell-Smith were the trainbearers, and there were also four other child attendants, Miss Joy Orde, Miss Denise Dolphin, Miss Diana Bagnell-Smith, and Miss Rosemary Lucas. The page wore a Kate Greenawav suit of pale pink satin, and the bridesmaids had Kate Greenaway frocks of the same material as the bride's, and coronets of tiny pink flowers in their hair. Mr. James Gault was best man, and a reception was afterwards held at the May Fair Hotel.

The honeymoon is being spent on the Continent, and the bride travelled in a black and white ensemble of tissue cravatte, her long cloth coat being trimmed with white fur."

Escape from Colditz

Harry was incarcerated in the legendary Nazi prison-castle on 7 November 1940, having been one of the "Laufen Six" who had escaped from another camp at Laufen called Oflag VII. As such he was among the first nine British inmates at Colditz.

Aware that some injured or unwell POWs had been repatriated during a prisoner exchange between Germany and Britain, he faked a duodenal ulcer and its symptoms, and as a consequence of this elaborate and extended ruse was eventually included in the prisoner exchange of October 1944.

Harry sent an account of his escape to historian Michael Booker, who includes it as one chapter of his book Collecting Colditz And Its Secrets: a Unique Pictorial Record of Life Behind the Walls (2005) by Michael Booker, Grub Street Publishing, London (available from Amazon.co.uk), pp93-97.

The account mentions that during this time, while persuading a doctor to assist in his deception, he had told him (truthfully) about his wife being dead (she is not named, but obviously this was Bettine) and how his two daughters were being raised by their grandmother (Maud?).